/  jiJGUSTUS 
SAINT-G/^  IDENS 


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AUGUSTUS 
SAINT-GAUDENS 


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PORTRAIT  OF  AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


IN    HIS   FORTIETH  YEAR 
BY   KENYON  COX 

1  liis  reproduction  is  made  from  tlic  original  picture  painted  in  the  sculptor's 
riiirty-sixrh  Street  studio  in  1887  and  destroyed  in  the  fire  in  his  studio  in 
Cornish,  X.  H.,  in  1904.  A  reph'ca  was  painted  by  Mr.  Cox  in  1908  for  the 
Memorial  Exhibition  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum.  The  sculptor  is  repre- 
sented at  work  upon  the  relief  portrait  of  William  M.  Chase.  Behind  his 
head,  to  the  left,  is  a  photograph  of  one  of  the  Vanderbilt  caryatids.  A  cast 
of  the  "Unknown  Lady"  of  the  Louvre  stands  beyond.  Next  is  the  bronze 
relief  of  Homer  Saint-Gaudens  as  an  infant,  and  beyond  that  the  plaster 
relief  of  Miss  Lee.  The  scaffolding  behind  the  easel  is  the  back  of  the  Shaw 
Memorial. 


AUGUSTUS 
SAINT-GAUDENS 

BY 

C.  LEWIS  HIND 


LONDON:  JOHN  LANE,  THE  BODLEY  HEAD 
NEW  YORK:   JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 

MCMVni 


Copyright  1908  by 
JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


PFESS  OF  REDFIELD  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK 


TO 

RUTGER  BLEECKER  JEWETT 

AND  OTHER  FRIENDS  MADE 
IN  AMERICA 


PREFATORY  NOTE 


This  book  on  Augustus  Saint-Gaudens  is  divided  into  four  sections: 

1.  His  Life:  Chronology. 

2.  An  Essay. 

3.  His  Works:  Chronology. 

4.  Photographic  reproductions  showing  the  development  of  his  art 
from  his  first  production  to  the  last. 

I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  de  W.  C.  Ward  for  permission  to  include 
many  of  the  photographs  he  has  prepared  for  an  edition-de-luxe  portfolio, 
giving  the  sculptor's  entire  achievement.  Also  to  the  editor  of  the  official 
catalogue  of  the  Memorial  Exhibition  held  at  the  Metropolitan  Museum, 
New  York,  a  model  catalogue  in  thoroughness  of  detail  and  arrangement. 


New  York,  1908. 


C.  L.  H. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PORTRAIT  OF  AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS  IN  HIS 
FORTIETH  YEAR.    BY  KENYON  COX 

WILLIAM  MAXWELL  EVARTS 

WILLIAM  GEDNEY  BUNCE 

RODMAN  DE  KAY  GILDER 

DOCTOR  WALTER  CARY 

DOCTOR  HENRY  SHIFF 

JOHN  S.  SARGENT,  R.A. 

CHILDREN  OF  PRESCOTT  HALL  BUTLER 

ADMIRAL  DAVID  GLASGOW  FARRAGUT 

MISS  SARAH  REDWOOD  LEE 

SAMUEL  GRAY  WARD 

HOMER  SHIFF  SAINT-GAUDENS 

MRS.  STANFORD  WHITE 

PROFESSOR  ASA  GRAY 

DOCTOR  HENRY  WHITNEY  BELLOWS 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

AMOR  CARITAS 

DEACON  SAMUEL  CHAPIN  ("THE  PURITAN") 
WILLIAM  MERRITT  CHASE 
CHILDREN  OF  JACOB  H.  SCHIFF 
GENERAL  WILLIAM  TECUMSEH  SHERMAN 
KENYON  COX 
WASHINGTON  MEDAL 
DOCTOR  JAMES  McCOSH 
JULES  BASTIEN-LEPAGE 

ADAMS  MONUMENT,  ROCK   CREEK  CEMETERY, 
WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

DIANA 

CHARLES  COTESWORTH  BEAMAN 
GARFIELD  MONUMENT,  PHILADELPHIA 
MEMORIAL  TO  ROBERT  GOULD  SHAW 
DETAIL  FROM  THE  SHAW  MONUMENT 
PETER  COOPER 

PETER  COOPER,  HEAD  OF  BRONZE  STATUE 
WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWELLS  AND  MISS  HOWELLS 
CHARLES  ANDERSON  DANA 
JOSEPHINE  SHAW  LOWELL 

HORACE  GRAY,  ASSOCIATE  JUSTICE  OF  THE  UNITED 

STATES  SUPREME  COURT 
ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 
MR.  AND  MRS.  WAYNE  MAC  VEAGH 

MONUMENT    TO    GENERAL    WILLIAM  TECUMSEH 
SHERMAN 

SHERMAN  MONUMENT:   LATER  STUDY  FOR  THE  HEAD 
OF  VICTORY 

THE  PILGRIM 

PLAQUE  COMMEMORATIVE   OF  THE   CORNISH  CELE- 
BRATION, JUNE  23,  1905 

SIX  PLASTER  MODELS  FOR  THE  UNITED  STATES  NEW 
COINAGE 

WHISTLER  MEMORIAL  AT  UNITED  STATES  MILITARY 
ACADEMY,  WEST  POINT,  N.  Y. 

STUDY  FOR  THE  HEAD  OF  CHRIST 

AUGUSTUS   SAINT-GAUDENS,  FROM  PHOTOGRAPH  BY 
de  W.  C.  WARD 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


HIS  LIFE:  CHRONOLOGY 


1848  Born  in  Dublin,  Ireland,  March  ist.  Father,  a  Frenchman, 
came  from  Aspet  in  Haute-Garonne,  Pyrenees,  a  few  miles 
from  the  town  of  Saint-Gaudens.  Mother,  a  native  of  Dublin. 
When  Augustus,  one  of  several  children,  was  six  months  old 
the  family  emigrated  to  America.  Lived  for  three  months  in 
Boston,  then  settled  in  New  York. 

1 861  At  the  age  of  thirteen  Augustus  was  apprenticed  to  Louis  Avet, 
cameo  cutter,  said  to  be  the  first  man  to  cut  cameos  in  the 
United  States. 

1864     Quarrelled  with  Avet  and  left  his  employment. 

1864-7  Worked  with  Le  Brehon,  cameo  cutter.  Studied  drawing  at 
night  during  his  apprenticeship — four  years  at  Cooper  Union, 
two  years  at  National  Academy  of  Design.  Towards  the  close 
of  this  period  he  produced  his  first  work,  a  portrait  bust  of  his 
father. 

1867     Went  to  Paris  to  study  sculpture.  Petite  Ecole;  aged  nineteen. 

1868-70  Paris.  In  1868  he  entered  Jouffroy's  studio  in  the  Ecole  des 
Beaux  Arts.  Self-supporting,  working  half  his  time  at  cameo- 
cutting.  Mercie,  a  fellow-student ;  Falguiere  and  Saint  Mar- 
ceau  had  just  left.  1868  was  the  year  of  the  Universal 
Exposition,  when  Paul  Dubois  exhibited  his  silvered  bronze, 
Florentine  Singer,  which  had  been  awarded  the  Medal  of 
Honour  in  1866.  This  work  exercised  a  strong  influence  on 
contemporary  sculptors  and  on  Saint-Gaudens.  Paul  Dubois, 
who  was  nineteen  years  older  than  Saint-Gaudens,  was  one 
of  his  lifelong  friends  and  admirers. 

1870-2  Rome.  Ori  the  outbreak  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War,  Saint- 
Gaudens  moved  from  Paris  to  Rome,  where  he  remained  for 
three  years,  associating  with  the  French  prize-men  of  the  day, 
of  whom  Mercie  was  one.  In  Rome  he  produced  the  statues 
Hiawatha  and  Silence.  He  also  experimented  in  painting, 
making  studies  of  the  Campagna. 

1872  Returned  to  New  York  in  the  winter  of  this  year  to  model  a 

bust  of  William  Maxwell  Evarts,  which  was  put  into  marble 
in  1874. 

1873  Rome,  where  he  remained  until  1874. 

1875-7  New  York.  Studio  in  German  Savings  Bank  Building. 


XI 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


1876  Received  commission  for  the  Farragut  monument. 

1877  Married  Augusta  F.  Homer,  of  Boston. 

1877-8  Paris.     Member  of  the  International  Jury  at  the  Universal 
Exposition. 

1879      Rome.  Flying  visit. 

1879-80  Paris.    The  Farragut  exhibited  in  plaster  at  the  Salon  of  1880, 
also  several  medallions.  Position  assured. 

New  York.  Studio  at  Thirty-sixth  Street. 

Received  commission  for  the  Shaw  monument. 

Took  a  house  at  Cornish,  New  Hampshire,  as  a  summer 
residence.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Saint-Gaudens  were  the  first  settlers 
in  this  artistic  and  literary  colony. 

Lincoln  statue  unveiled. 

General  Sherman  gave  Saint-Gaudens  eighteen  sittings  for  his 
bust. 

1 89 1      Adams  monument,  Rock  Creek  Cemetery,  Washington. 

1893      Designed  medal  for  the  World's  Columbian  Exposition,  Chicago. 

1897     Shaw  monument  unveiled  in  Boston. 

1897)  Paris.  Worked  on  Sherman  group.  Officer  of  the  Legion  of 
1900]       Honour.   Corresponding  Member  of  the  Institute  of  France. 

1900  Medal  of  Honour,  Paris.  Illness;  returned  to  America,  bringing 

the  Sherman  with  him.  Operation  at  Boston.  Settled  perma- 
nently at  Cornish,  N.  H.  He  finished  the  Sherman,  and,  in 
spite  of  ill-health,  produced,  during  the  latter  years  of  his 
life,  among  other  works,  the  seated  figure  of  Lincoln,  the 
Parnell,  the  Phillips  Brooks  for  Boston,  the  models  for  the 
allegorical  figures  in  front  of  Boston  Library,  a  seated  figure 
of  Christ  with  attendant  angels,  and  the  designs  for  the  new 
coinage. 

1901  Special  Medal  of  Honour,  Buff^alo.  The  medal  was  designed  by 

Mr.  James  E.  Eraser. 

1903  Equestrian  statue  of  General  Sherman  unveiled  at  the  entrance 

to  Central  Park,  New  York. 

1904  Elected  Honorary  Foreign  Academician  of  the  Royal  Academy, 

London.  The  following  were  among  his  other  distinctions: 
Member  of  the  Society  of  American  Artists,  which  he  had 
helped  to  found;  Member  of  the  National  Academy  of  New 
York;  Member  of  the  Academy  of  St.  Luke,  Rome.  Honorary 
degrees  from  Harvard,  Princeton  and  Yale. 

xii 


1880 
1884 
1885 

1887 
1888 


HIS  LIFE:  CHRONOLOGY 

1904  His  studio  at  Cornish  caught  fire.    Models,  drawings  and 

sketches  were  burnt,  also  bric-a-brac  and  paintings,  inclu- 
ding his  portrait  painted  by  Bastien-Lepage.  Saint-Gaudens 
was  in  New  York  at  the  time. 

1905  The  Cornish  residents  presented  a  gold  bowl  to  Mr.  and  Mrs. 

Saint-Gaudens  to  commemorate  the  twentieth  anniversary 
of  their  coming  to  New  Hampshire.  A  masque,  with  seventy 
performers,  was  played  in  the  grounds. 

1907  Died  at  Cornish,  after  a  long  illness  and  much  suffering,  on 
August  3d.  He  worked  almost  until  the  end,  often  being 
carried  to  his  studios  to  superintend  the  work  of  his  assistants. 

On  February  29th,  1908,  a  memorial  service  in  honour  of  Augus- 
tus Saint-Gaudens  was  held  in  New  York. 

A  memorial  exhibition  of  his  works  was  opened  in  March,  at 
the  Metropolitan  Museum,  New  York. 


xiii 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


AN  APPRECIATION 

I 

E  LEFT  the  world  a  Httle  better  than  he  found  it." 
With  these  true  and  temperate  words  the  voice  of  the 
speaker  ceased.  There  was  no  applause,  as  this  solemn 
assembly  in  honour  of  the  memory  of  the  first  American 
sculptor  of  genius  was  in  the  nature  of  a  sacred  rite; 
but  the  hush  of  sympathetic  appreciation  that  stilled  all 
the  trivial  movements  of  the  large  audience  was  more 
eloquent  than  any  quick  manifestation  of  approval.  We  felt  that  the 
sobriety  and  taste  of  the  peroration,  as  of  the  whole  memorial  oration, 
by  Mr.  McClellan,  Mayor  of  New  York  City,  was  in  harmony  with  the 
life-work  of  Augustus  Saint-Gaudens.  This  lay  service  of  gratitude  for 
the  gift  of  a  significant  life  was  held  on  the  29th  of  February,  1908,  in 
the  city  of  New  York,  where  Saint-Gaudens  lived  and  worked  for  so 
many  years;  where  so  many  of  his  friends  remain;  which  he  had  known 
so  well,  and  upon  which  he  has  left  the  impress  of  enduring  beauty  and 
exemplary  achievement.  His  Sherman  and  his  Farragut  rise  nobly 
above  the  swirl  of  New  York,  standards  to  which  others  must  strive  to 
attain,  the  high-water  mark  of  modern  sculpture. 

On  August  3,  1907,  death  had  released  him  from  long-drawn-out 
suffering.  He  worked  almost  to  the  end  at  his  home  in  Cornish,  New 
Hampshire,  for  to  him  working  and  living  were  synonymous  terms. 
His  brain  still  continued  to  plan  and  design  when,  too  weak  to  walk  or 
to  use  his  hands,  he  was  carried  across  the  garden  from  house  to  studios 
to  direct  and  counsel  his  assistants  who  were  making  enlargements  from 
the  models  of  his  last  works  that,  in  spite  of  bodily  pain,  he  had  been 
able  to  complete  in  the  peace  of  the  uplands  of  New  Hampshire. 

In  the  intervening  months  since  his  death  comrades  and  friends, 
with  Mr.  Daniel  Chester  French  as  controller,  had  been  collecting 
originals  and  casts  of  his  work  and  arranging  for  a  memorial  exhibition 
to  be  held  at  the  Metropolitan  Museum.  The  lay  service  was  a  prelude 
to  the  opening  of  that  exhibition.  Never  before,  I  think,  has  sculptor 
been  so  honoured;  never  before,  in  my  experience,  has  the  spiritual 
presence  of  an  artist  whose  place  is  empty  seemed  so  near  as  during 
those  two  hours  consecrated  to  his  memory  with  music,  poetry  and 
quiet-spoken  words  of  affection,  praise  and  prophecy.  The  harmonies 
of  Chopin's  Funeral  March  swelled  from  lamentation  into  the  passages 
of  triumph  as  if  the  heart  of  the  composer  were  crying:  "O  Death,  where 
is  thy  sting!"  And  as  the  familiar  music  quickened  our  senses,  the 
white  cast  of  one  of  the  sculptor's  creations,  a  standing  virginal  figure 
with  upraised  wings  and  hands  rising  from  the  back  of  the  dais  in  a 
tracery  of  flowers,  seemed  to  submit  a  spiritual  communication  from 


XV 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


him  to  us.  This  young  figure,  this  Angel  of  Peace,  Love  and  Purity,  he 
modelled  again  and  again  for  the  commemoration  of  fresh  sorrows, 
making  in  each  essay  slight  alterations,  as  if  saying:  "I  can  change  the 
blossoms,  but  not  the  structure  of  roots  and  stems — those  are  integral 
and  unalterable."  One  of  the  early  reincarnations  is  familiar  to  all — 
the  Amor  Caritas  of  the  Luxembourg  Gallery.  The  last  I  saw  the 
other  day  in  St.  Stephen's  Church,  Philadelphia,  embedded  in  the  wall 
by  the  chancel,  still  and  white,  a  monument  to  a  girl  who  died  young, 
and  the  words  engraved  on  the  tablet  held  aloft  by  this  angel,  into  whose 
face  has  crept  a  sweeter  radiance  and  in  whose  girdle  you  note  some 
fresher  flowers,  are:  "Blessed  are  the  Pure  in  Heart  for  they  shall  see 
God." 

When  the  quartet  played  certain  numbers  from  Beethoven,  Bach  and 
Schubert,  the  echo  of  his  presence  in  the  hearts  of  many  listening  friends 
must  have  been  very  insistent,  for  Schubert's  Quartet  in  D  Minor, 
Bach's  Air  from  Suite  in  D,  Beethoven's  Quartet  in  F  Major,  op.  59, 
had  often  been  his  choice  on  those  musical  Sunday  afternoons  in  his 
big  white  studio  in  Thirty-sixth  Street.  As  I  did  not  know  Saint- 
Gaudens  in  life,  the  music  of  his  choice  brought  the  man  no  nearer  to 
me;  but  when  my  eyes  travelled  downward  from  that  white  angel  among 
the  flowers  on  the  dais  to  the  seated,  shrouded  figure  reproduced  on  the 
cover  of  the  programme,  I  felt  that  his  art,  which  was  so  essentially  the 
expression  of  himself,  reached  its  profoundest  expression  in  this 
woman,  shrouded  and  quiescent,  without  name  or  inscription,  so 
detached,  so  content  with  her  loneliness,  who  sits  awaiting  an  ultimate 
awakening  in  the  cemetery  of  Rock  Creek  above  the  city  of  Washington. 

II 

"He  left  the  world  a  little  better  than  he  found  it." 

Take  the  word  "better"  in  its  widest  acceptation  and  can  we  say 
more  for  any  man,  woman,  child  or  dumb  creature  that  has  lived  and 
died  ^  Art  is  not  divorced  from  life,  as  certain  shrill  prophets  would  have 
us  believe.  It  is  a  part  of  life,  like  the  movement  of  clouds,  the  ways  of 
insects,  the  energy  from  food,  and  the  idea  of  righteousness.  Art  is  life 
in  life,  and  the  part  can  tincture  and  sanctify  the  whole.  The  artist  by 
being  himself,  his  best  self,  can  m.ake  the  road  for  others  living  long 
after  him  not  only  smoother  but  a  highway  of  recurring  joys.  We  walk 
our  stages  of  the  journey  and  the  best  that  we  assimilate  comes  often 
from  the  letters  written  to  us  in  terms  of  paint,  print  and  marble  by 
those  whose  insight  and  power  of  expression  are  greater  than  our  own. 
We  take  the  sustenance  that  our  souls  need,  and  as  we  grow  in  knowledge 
the  food  should  also  become  finer,  rarer  and  simpler  in  quahty,  as  in  the 
case  of  a  learned  Greek  archaeologist  and  lecturer  of  my  acquaintance, 
who  knows  all  there  is  to  be  known  about  Greek  sculpture — a  past 
master  in  it — but  whose  voice  drops  only  into  a  reverent  intonation 
when  he  speaks  the  name  of  the  austere  Scopas.  Some,  doubtless,  have 

XV  i 


AN  APPRECIATION 


found  sustenance  in  Canova  and  Hiram  Powers.  If  those  academic 
and  uninspired  craftsmen  have  helped  others  to  hve;  if  they  have  given 
one  moment  of  rehef  from  sorrow  or  boredom,  one  thrill  of  joy,  then 
Canova  and  Hiram  Powers  have  left  the  world  a  little  better  than  they 
found  it  and  to  them  let  honour  and  thanks  be  rendered. 

Ill 

All  great  art  is  simple  and  any  attempt  to  analyze  the  effect  of  a 
work  of  art  upon  the  beholder  should  be  simple.  May  we  not  just  ask 
ourselves  these  questions:  Does  it  quicken  the  emotions?  Does  it  stir 
the  slumber  of  the  soul Does  it  spur  the  brain  ?  Does  it  open  a  window, 
as  Jan  van  Eyck  opened  an  early  fifteenth  century  window  to  the  beauty 
of  the  world  of  landscape  art,  although  he  did  not  dare  to  make  Our  Lady 
and  Chancellor  Rolin  look  through  it  at  the  winding  river  and  little 
islands  ?  Does  it  add  something  to  our  lives  which  we  cannot  find  for 
ourselves,  or  which,  having  once  found,  we  have  lost  in  the  stress  and 
obsession  of  daily  details  ?  Does  it  give  the  thrill  of  the  glory  of  a  sunset 
seen  suddenly  through  a  window  after  a  day  of  cloud,  the  mental  joy 
of  a  piercing  passage  in  Shakespeare,  the  ecstasy  of  a  Mozartian  melody, 
the  inward  comprehension  of  the  mystery  of  life  on  hearing  a  child  say 
its  first  prayers  in  its  mother's  arms  ?  Remembering  the  street  sculpture 
that,  with  certain  brilliant  exceptions,  reduces  thoroughfares  and  in- 
teriors in  the  Old  World,  as  well  as  the  New,  to  a  level  of  almost  incon- 
ceivable platitudinous  ugliness,  the  answer,  as  regards  the  average 
level  of  modern  sculpture,  must  be  in  the  negative.   There  is  little  to 
choose  between  England  and  America.  England  has  her  terrible  monu- 
ments crowded  in  Westminster  Abbey,  America  has  her  awful  effigies 
of  chosen  sons  crowding  one  another  in  the  National  Hall  of  Statuary 
in  the  Capitol.  We  have  our  execrable  Achilles  in  Hyde  Park,  our  eye- 
sores of  Stephenson  in  Euston  Road,  Cobden  in  Kentish  Town,  and  the 
monument  to  Queen  Victoria  in  High  Street,  Kensington,  at  which  even 
the  drivers  of  omnibuses  jeer.  You  have  your — but  a  guest  must  be 
courteous.    I  would  gild  my  criticism  in  the  form  of  an  interrogation. 
Has  any  American  citizen  ever  derived  one  instant's  pleasure  or 
encouragement  from,  say,  the  Horace  Greeley  planted  against  The 
Tribune  building,  frock-coated  Roscoe  Conkling  in  Madison  Square, 
Washington  Irving  in  Bryant  Park,  or  the  full-sized  cast  of  Michael- 
angelo's  egregious  David  in  the  park  adjoining  the  Albright  Gallery  at 
Buffalo  ?  When  a  classical  model  is  borrowed,  it  should  be  chosen  from 
the  master's  highest  achievement. 

The  "American  Society  of  the  Fine  Arts,"  which  is  about  to  extend 
its  sphere  of  influence,  should  agitate  for  a  law  to  the  effect  that  no 
public  monument  shall  be  erected  in  honour  of  the  dead  which  does  not 
minister  to  the  pleasure  of  the  living. 


xvn 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


IV 

The  answer  as  regards  the  work  of  Augustus  Saint-Gaudens  is  in 
the  affirmative.  Naturally  it  does  not  always  pass  the  test.  Since  the 
nameless  draughtsman  oi  the  q^uaternary  period  engraved  the  mam- 
moth on  the  wall  of  the  cave  of  Combarelles,  the  artist  has  not  lived  who 
would  be  awarded  full  marks  in  such  an  examination.  Saint-Gaudens 
produced  so  much  in  his  forty  years  of  working  life  (glance  over  the 
pages  of  the  chronology  of  his  works),  and  sometimes  a  commission  was 
not  entirely  sympathetic  to  him.  Sometimes  in  modelling  a  bust  or  a 
relief  of  one  who  was  no  longer  living  he  had  only  a  photograph  for 
guidance.  Occasionally  his  work  lacks  that  raison  mystique  of  which 
Maeterlinck  speaks;  occasionally  it  does  not  evoke  emotion  in  the 
beholder.  I  am  cold  before  his  Peter  Cooper  seated  heavily  in  the  em- 
brasure of  a  heavy  canopy  by  the  Cooper  Institute.  The  figure  is 
picturesque  in  its  uncouthness,  but  it  lacks  the  splendid  sense  of  per- 
sonality that  distinguishes  the  Lincoln.  The  mere  idea  of  Lincoln  is  an 
inspiration  in  itself.  The  idea  of  Peter  Cooper,  admirable  citizen  and 
good  man,  does  not  inspire  us,  and  it  did  not  inspire  Saint-Gaudens. 
The  artist  must  feel  before  he  can  express.  Perhaps  it  is  the  canopy,  in 
which  the  sculptor  was  assisted  by  Messrs.  McKim,  Mead  &  White, 
that  deadens  my  appreciation  of  the  Peter  Cooper.  If  this  be  so,  it  is  the 
single  instance  in  which  that  remarkable  firm  who  collaborated  with 
Saint-Gaudens  in  the  architectural  setting  of  many  of  his  monuments, 
and  to  whom  New  York  and  America  are  indebted  for  a  series  of 
beautiful  buildings,  failed  to  add  a  distinguished  architectural  setting 
to  the  sculptor's  design.  But  with  the  exception  of  Peter  Cooper  and  a 
few  others,  such  as  the  Garfield  in  Fairmount  Park,  Philadelphia,  the 
many  works  of  Saint-Gaudens  triumphantly  answer  the  question:  "Do 
we  give  pleasure  to  the  living  ? " 

If  I  were  asked  to  catalogue  the  works  by  him  from  which  I  have 
derived  the  keenest  delight  and  which  continue  to  delight,  I  would  name 
the  Sherman,  the  Farragut,  the  Lincoln,  the  Shaw,  the  figure  in  Rock 
Creek  Cemetery,  the  Puritan,  the  Pilgrim,  the  series  of  standing  angels 
to  which  the  Amor  Caritas  belongs,  and  among  the  reliefs,  the  Butler 
Children,  the  Schiff  Children,  the  Bastien  Lepage,  the  little  Homer 
Saint-Gaudens  and  the  early  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  not  the  memonal 
in  Saint  Giles's,  Edinburgh,  which  is  too  large,  but  the  original  small 
relief  in  rectangular  form,  showing  the  head  and  foot  of  the  bed,  that 
long  bed,  the  long  lines  of  the  figure,  the  long,  sensitive  face,  seemingly 
doomed  but  happily  reprieved,  and  on  the  background  the  winged 
horse,  the  ivy  leaves  and  berries,  and  the  verse  ending: 

"Life  is  over.  Life  was  gay. 
We  have  come  the  primrose  way." 


xviii 


AN  APPRECIATION 


V 

I  count  myself  fortunate  in  having,  by  the  chances  of  travel,  reached 
the  point  of  approach  to  the  work  of  Saint-Gaudens  suddenly.  He  came 
almost  newly  to  me.  Nothing  was  discounted  by  advance  paragraphs 
and  studio  discussions.  I  saw  two  of  his  finest  works,  the  Sherman  and 
the  Farragut,  for  the  first  time  on  the  day  of  my  arrival  in  New  York.  I 
walked  up  Fitth  Avenue  and  encountered  with  a  thrill  of  joy  Sherman 
the  soldier  riding  to  victory,  signalling  a  paean  of  triumph  among  the 
trees  at  the  south  entrance  to  Central  Park.  I  walked  down  Fifth 
Avenue  and  found  Farragut  the  sailor,  balancing  himself  as  if  still 
standing  upon  the  quarter-deck  of  his  good  ship,  comfortably  grounded 
in  Madison  Square.  I  looked  up  above  his  bluff,  strong  face,  high  up 
through  the  brilliant  clarity  of  the  light  that  makes  New  York,  five  out 
of  seven  days  in  the  week,  one  of  the  pleasantest  winter  resorts  in  the 
world,  and  there,  on  the  pinnacle  of  the  Garden  tower,  was  slim  Diana, 
one  of  Saint-Gaudens's  few  nudes,  "Diana  of  the  Cross  Winds,"  as  she 
has  been  called,  shooting  an  imaginary  arrowat  the  Flatiron  Building  that 
dominates  the  windiest  corner  in  all  New  York.  One  grows  very  fond 
of  this  little  Diana  (she  is  many  feet  high),  as  she  is  always  present  and 
always  contented  and  pretty.  I  see  her  from  the  room  where  I  write 
these  lines,  a  beautiful  silhouette  against  a  luminous  white  cloud,  poised 
on  her  pinnacle,  ready  to  shoot  and  fly  away,  not  in  the  least  disturbed 
at  the  gigantic  marble  tower  658  feet  high,  with  48  stories,  "the  highest 
office  building  in  the  world,"  that  will  overtop  but  will  not  subjugate 
her.  She  recalls,  too,  the  labour  of  infinite  pains  that  Saint-Gaudens 
always  gave  to  his  work.  Perfection  was  his  only  goal.  His  artistic 
conscience  knew  no  rest  even  after  a  work  was  cast  in  bronze,  unveiled 
and  placed  in  situ.  He  was  never  satisfied,  and  so  fearful  of  letting 
anything  but  his  best  go  forth  to  the  world  that  many  experiments  never 
left  his  studio. 

He  desired  to  alter  the  Shaw  monument  that  rises  from  the  terrace 
above  Boston  Common.  Permission  was  refused;  but  he  worked  again 
upon  the  original  sketch,  remodelled  the  floating  figure  of  Death  or 
Fame  and  replaced  her  at  a  different  angle.  One  day  he  announced 
his  determination  to  refashion  the  drapery  of  the  figure  in  Rock  Creek 
Cemetery,  and  desisted  only  when  his  assistant,  Mr.  Fraser,  said:  "You 
may  make  it  diflPerent;  you  cannot  make  it  better."  After  Diana  had 
been  placed  on  the  tower  in  Madison  Square  Garden  he  came  slowly 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  figure  was  too  large.  Stanford  White  con- 
curred, so  Diana  was  taken  down,  at  their  own  expense,  and  replaced 
by  the  present  smaller  version. 

VI 

Subjective  impressions  may,  or  may  not,  be  of  interest  to  the 
reader,  but  the  greatness  of  the  subject  or  theme  may  excuse  the  record 
of  them. 


XIX 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


When  I  recall  the  various  impressive,  startling,  interesting  and 
amusing  episodes  of  my  five  months'  sojourn  in  America,  the  dominating 
impression  is  of  my  first  glimpse  of  Saint-Gaudens's  Sherman,  the 
colour  of  gold,  a  happy  warrior  in  the  flush  of  his  "vigourous  and 
eccentric  years,"  eager,  intent,  his  stern  face  touched  with  idealism, 
symbolically  marching  through  Georgia  to  the  sea,  localised  by  the 
broken  pine  branch  beneath  the  horse's  feet,  led  by  Victory,  laurel- 
crowned,  bearing  a  palm  branch,  man,  horse  and  Victory  sweeping 
onward  "that  the  Union  might  be  saved,  and  that  then  forever  there 
might  be  peace."  Here  is  inspiration  for  the  youth  of  America;  here 
Art  passes  from  the  exhibition  room  into  the  arena  of  life,  where  shine 
the  unsoiled  fabrics  of  which  immortal  things  are  made.  Saint-Gaudens 
wished  to  place  this  group,  his  ultimate  great  work,  the  last  canto,  as 
Mr.  McClellan  finely  called  it,  of  his  epic  of  the  Civil  War  near  Grant's 
tomb  on  Riverside  Drive.  The  authorities  decided  otherwise,  wisely  I 
think.  It  would  be  hard  to  imagine  a  finer  site  for  this  incentive  towards 
ideal  patriotism  than  the  widening  land  where  the  palaces  of  Fifth 
Avenue  merge  into  the  pleasances  of  Central  Park.  There,  on  an  oasis  in 
the  traffic,  Sherman  rides  eternally  forth  to  Victory. 

In  journeying  about  New  York  one  often  passes  the  Sherman,  and 
always  at  the  sight  of  this  fusion  of  the  real  and  the  ideal,  the  seen  and 
the  unseen,  the  real  warrior  and  the  warrior's  ideal — Nike-Eirene — the 
heart  leaps  as  to  a  war  chant,  or  to  great  deeds  told  in  great  verse. 
There  is  an  extraordinary  suggestion  of  a  light-footed  forward  movement 
in  the  advancing  group :  the  travail  of  the  way  is  forgotten  in  the  glory 
of  the  mission.  The  feet  of  the  Victory  seem  hardly  to  touch  the  ground, 
and  the  inspiration  of  her  presence,  the  aura  of  her  spirit,  sweeping  out 
from  her  unfurled  wings,  sweeping  forward  through  her  outstretched 
arm,  touch  and  refine  the  clay  of  horse  as  well  as  of  man  to  something 
rich  and  rare.  It  is  that  uncommon  thing  in  art,  an  ideal  made  concrete 
and  actual  without  loss  of  verisimilitude  and  with  no  hint  of  sentimentality. 
This  lyrical  epic  in  bronze  honours  the  dead  and  delights  the  living. 
Incidentally  it  pleads  for  colour  in  public  monuments  as  sanctioned  by 
the  ancients  from  Phidias  to  Jan  van  Eyck.  Who  will  deny  that  the 
group  gains  greatly  in  beauty  from  the  two  layers  of  gold  leaf  that  Saint- 
Gaudens  placed  upon  it,  and,  if  we  are  to  judge  by  the  Marcus  Aurelius 
on  the  Capitoline  Hill,  the  weathering  of  the  centuries  will  but  add  to 
the  charm  of  its  patina  ? 

VII 

"Whatever  you  do,  have  the  appearance  of  doing  it  without  toil," 
was  the  sage  counsel  given  to  the  gentlemen  of  Urbino's  court.  The 
Sherman  bears  no  more  hint  of  the  signs  of  toil  than  when  Tetrazzini 
warbles  Donizetti,  yet  no  fewer  than  eleven  years  of  study  and 
alteration  passed  before  the  group  was  unveiled  on  Decoration  Day, 
1903.  For  three  of  the  years  the  sculptor  was  ill;  but  he  worked  upon 


XX 


AN  APPRECIATION 


it,  more  or  less,  for  eight,  and  he  told  a  friend  he  estimated  that  it  cost 
him  three  years  of  actual  labour.  An  important  article  in  the  Century 
Magazine  (March,  1908)  by  his  son,  Mr.  Homer  Saint-Gaudens,  who 
is  to  write  the  official  life  of  his  father,  supplies  interesting  details  of  the 
work  done  by  the  sculptor  on  the  Sherman  during  the  last  years  of  his 
life.  When  he  left  the  hospital  in  1900  and  settled  at  his  country  home 
in  Cornish,  his  first  serious  occupation  was  "the  completion"  of  the 
Sher?nan  monument.  I  must  quote  a  few  lines  from  Mr.  Homer  Saint- 
Gaudens's  article  to  show  what  the  word  "completion"  signifies: 

"At  this  time  (iQOo)  one  cast  of  the  Sherman  stood  in  the  Paris 
Exposition,  while  a  plaster  duplicate  had  gone  to  the  French  foundry. 
My  father,  however,  still  dissatisfied  with  the  result,  and  yet  dreading 
a  trip  abroad,  set  up  a  third  replica  in  Cornish,  and  engaged  assistants, 
in  order  to  send  his  alterations  to  Paris,  where  they  might  be  inserted 
in  the  bronze.  And  here,  in  a  shed  placed  around  the  statue  to  keep 
out  the  snow,  but  not  the  cold,  he  remodelled  sections  of  the  cloak  until 
he  enlivened  it  with  a  possible  floating  movement.  He  modified  such 
portions  of  the  Victory  as  her  wing  and  her  'Germanic'  hair  at  the  back 
of  her  neck.  He  emphasized  the  tiny  angles  and  stiffs  marks  of  age  upon 
the  horse  to  increase  the  nervous  snap.  He  restudied  the  mane,  and,  at 
a  fortunate  suggestion  of  an  assistant,  lifted  the  end  of  the  tail.  And 
he  changed  the  oak  branch  on  the  base  to  one  of  pine.  .   .  . 

"  But  the  troubles  with  the  Sherman  were  not  over  after  these  [and 
other]  alterations.  My  father  betrayed  too  great  an  interest  in  this 
combination  of  the  real  with  the  ideal  to  let  the  statue  escape  him  then. 
So  he  set  up  the  bronze  himself  in  the  field  back  of  his  house,  to  the 
delight  of  the  farmers,  that  he  might  experiment  with  a  pedestal  and 
supervise  the  application  of  the  patina." 

VIII 

Lest  it  be  thought  that  my  enthusiasm  for  the  Sherman  is  too  un- 
bridled, I  give  myself  the  pleasure  of  quoting  Mr.  Kenyon  Cox,  who 
has  written  much,  always  with  insight  and  knowledge,  on  Saint- 
Gaudens.  Some  years  ago  he  expressed  the  conviction  that  the  Sherman 
monument  is  third  in  the  rank  of  the  great  equestrian  statues  of  the 
world,  the  first  two  being  Verrocchio's  Colleoni  and  Donatello's  Gat- 
tamelata,  a  handy  piece  of  criticism,  as  it  has  been  used  as  an  original 
commentary  by  almost  every  writer  and  speaker  on  Saint-Gaudens.  In 
his  latest  essay  on  Saint-Gaudens  {Atlantic  Monthly,  March,  1908), 
Mr.  Kenyon  Cox  writes:  "To-day  I  am  not  sure  that  this  work  of  an 
American  sculptor,  just  dead,  is  not,  in  its  own  way,  equal  to  either 
of  them." 

IX 

Taste  and  sobriety  were  the  characteristics  of  Saint-Gaudens's 
work.  He  had  a  horror  of  the  melodramatic,  or  extremes  of  any  kind. 


XXI 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


His  prepossession  was  with  grace,  sweetness,  spirituality,  refinement, 
whatsoever  you  choose  to  call  his  essential  quality.  Emotion  in  marble 
made  no  appeal  to  him.  I  believe  he  was  quite  out  of  sympathy  with 
the  passion  and  pathos  of  Rodin's  later  work.  He  was  a  draughtsman, 
a  designer,  who  expressed  himself  with  equal  feeling  for  the  ensemble 
whether  he  worked  in  the  round  or  in  rehef.  He  was  a  true  impressionist 
who  saw  a  work  as  a  whole  before  he  began,  and  who  kept  the  im- 
pression before  him  until  the  end.  Although  he  laboured  at  detail,  he 
always  strove  to  keep  the  detail  subservient  to  the  ensemble.  In  studying 
his  work  we  feel  that  it  is  completely  under  control,  impulse  is  chastened 
by  consideration.  He  was  an  eclectic  with,  if  the  term  be  allowed,  more 
individualism  than  eclecticism,  yet  he  never  allowed  his  individuality  to 
master  the  temperament  of  his  sitter.  Facile  cleverness  he  abhorred. 
He  avoided  mere  realism,  desiring  to  mould  what  he  selected  from  life 
into  a  pattern  framed  by  the  artist's  vision.  How  the  temperament 
of  this  silent  and  sagacious  man  was  evolved  from  a  French  father  and 
an  Irish  mother,  with  Paris  as  his  art  pedagogue,  and  New  York,  still 
a  little  raw  in  those  days,  as  the  scene  of  his  working  years,  I  leave  to 
students  of  heredity  to  determine. 

X 

If  we  agree  that  personality  is  the  life-giving  principle  in  art,  the 
essence  which  produces  the  aesthetic  and  spiritual  aura  of  great  work, 
it  should  not  be  difficult  to  find  a  word  to  express  the  personality  of 
every  significant  artist.  Recall  a  great  name  and  his  epithet  should  trip 
to  the  tongue — the  splendour  of  Titian,  the  curiosity  of  Leonardo,  the 
mysticism  of  Blake,  the  taste  of  Whistler.  For  Saint-Gaudens  I  would 
coin  a  compound,  and  speak  of  his  austere-sensitiveness.  His  artistic 
antennae  explored  the  nature  of  his  model,  while  his  austerity  re- 
strained him  from  dweUing  overmuch  on  the  intimacies  that  he  had 
discovered.  This  sympathy  is  well  shown  in  such  divergent  pieces  as 
the  Doctor  Shiff  of  1880,  the  Miss  Sarah  Lee  of  188 1,  the  Professor 
Asa  Gray  of  1884,  the  Dr.  Bellows  of  1885,  the  Bastien  Lepage  of  1880, 
the  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wayne  MacVeagh  of  1 902  and  the  Phillips  Brooks 
of  1907. 

Consider  his  five  heroes  of  the  Civil  War — Farragut  1880,  Lincoln 
1887,  Shaw  1897,  Logan  1897  and  Sherman  1903.  How  individual  they 
are,  how  minutely  and  delicately  felt,  yet  how  large  in  conception. 
Even  the  General  Logan,  which  his  most  sympathetic  critics  agree  in 
dispraising,  can  be  defended  on  the  ground  that  the  sculptor  could  not 
escape  from  the  fact  that  he  had  to  render  the  bravura  and  braggadocio 
of  "  Black  Jack  Logan."  It  is  difficult  for  an  artist  working  for  his 
living,  as  well  as  for  fame,  to  refuse  commissions  that  he  may  feel  are 
antipathetic. 


xxn 


AN  APPRECIATION 


XI 

But  Farragut  was  a  man  after  his  own  heart,  although  I  suspect 
that  bhiff  sailor  would  chortle  at  sight  of  the  delicate  designs  of  the 
pedestal  upon  which  his  effigy  stands,  and  would  smile,  the  way  of  a 
ship  upon  the  sea  being  his  particular  knowledge,  if  he  could  be  told 
that  the  seat  curving  round  his  monument  is  shaped  like  the  classic 
elliptic  exedra.  You  must  see  this  monument  in  situ;  indeed,  the  only 
way  to  study  a  monument  is  in  the  place  for  which  the  sculptor  and 
architect  designed  it.  The  very  back  of  this  sailor,  hard-trained,  equal  to 
any  fortune,  is  the  very  symbol  of  them  that  go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships, 
that  back  rising  doggedly  above  the  curt  command  engraved  beneath, 
"  Stick  to  the  Flag."  Farragut  faces  the  street,  standing  easily,but  firmly, 
seaman  fashion,  the  real  man  towering  above  the  dainty  unreality  of  the 
pedestal  of  New  River  bluestone  compact  of  fancy  and  imagery.  A 
sword,  plunging  down  through  the  waves,  is  flanked  by  figures  in  low 
relief  of  Courage  and  Loyalty;  and  the  arms  of  the  seat  are  formed  by 
the  curving  backs  of  dolphins.  On  the  ground  beneath  are  pebbles  of 
the  beach,  and  embedded  in  them  is  a  bronze  crab,  on  whose  back  may 
be  read  the  half-obliterated  name  of  Stanford  White,  who  collaborated 
with  the  sculptor  in  the  architectural  setting.  I  can  never  pass  this 
monument.  I  must  always  pause.  Others  too.  One  snowy  night  I 
watched  a  ragged  Italian  family  forget  cold  and  hunger  in  their  interest. 
The  mother  and  the  children  listened  while  the  father  explained  in  soft 
Italian  the  merits  of  the  American  sculptor's  work. 

XII 

The  Italian  father  passed  his  fingers  affectionately  over  the  low 
relief  figures  of  Courage  and  Loyalty  on  the  pedestal  of  the  Farragut 
statue.  Perhaps  he,  as  a  remote  descendant  of  that  wonderful  period  in 
Florence  when  rare  Donatello,  and  those  others  whose  names  are  like 
flowers,  worked  in  low  relief,  felt  some  dim  ancestral  memory  stir. 
Perhaps  the  Italian  father,  like  others  whom  I  could  name,  enjoyed 
these  soft  figures  in  low  relief  more  than  the  sturdy  statue  of  Farragut. 
Low  relief  to  many  has  a  peculiar  fascination,  appealing  more  as  a 
method  of  drawing  than  of  modelling,  and  demanding  from  the  artist 
a  far  greater  sensitiveness  in  the  rendering  of  light  and  shade  than  work 
in  the  round.  The  title  sculpture  has  even  been  denied  to  low  relief: 
it  has  been  claimed  as  a  form  of  graphic  design  in  stone  or  metal,  so 
akin  to  painting  that  connoisseurs  of  the  Renaissance  would  hang  reliefs 
and  paintings  together. 

Saint-Gaudens  was  intrigued  with  low  relief.  Indeed,  he  may  be 
said  to  have  revived  the  art  which  flowered  in  the  era  of  Donatello  to 
such  a  degree  of  delicate  beauty  that  certain  Florentine  low  reliefs  seem 
like  whispers  in  marble,  so  elusive  that  sometimes  one  fancies  a  breath 
will  blow  the  delicate  modelling  away.  Think  of  Donatello's  Youthful 


xxni 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


St.  John  in  the  Bargello,  and  his  head  of  a  cherub  in  the  cathedral  at 
Florence;  of  Mino  da  Fiesole's  Madonna,  Child  St.  John;  and  in  the 
round  of  Andrea  della  Robbias's  Bust  of  a  Child  in  the  Bargello,  and 
Desiderio  da  Settignano's  bust  of  Marietta  Palla  Strozzi  in  the  Berlin 
Museum. 

Saint-Gaudens  attempted  and  nearly  always  succeeded  in  his 
many  experiments  in  this  art  "  standing  between  sculpture  and  painting," 
from  lowest  relief  to  the  highest,  from  the  Bunce  and  Cary  heads, 
pictorial  and  tentative,  made  in  Paris  in  1877  and  1879,  to  the  con- 
summate mastery  of  the  Shaw  memorial;  from  the  simple  head  of  his 
infant  son  to  the  command  of  composition  shown  in  the  ^w^/^r  and  Schiff 
children. 

XIII 

How  does  a  bronze  low-relief  portrait  group  look,  usurping  the 
place  of  a  picture  in  a  modern  drawing-room  ?  I  was  fortunate  in  seeing 
the  relief  of  the  Butler  Children  in  its  rightful  place  in  the  house  of  the 
mother  of  the  two  little  boys  whose  young  beauty  it  perpetuates,  enclosed 
in  the  hammered  oak  frame  designed  for  it,  hanging  on  the  wall  of  a 
panelled  room  above  a  wood  fire  which  cast  shifting  reflections  upon  the 
patina  of  the  bronze.  No  picture  could  seem  more  suitable  to  the  place, 
or  give  a  more  enduring  pleasure  than  the  surfaces  of  this  low  relief, 
hiding  and  revealing  themselves  under  the  influences  of  the  ruddy  light 
from  the  fire  and  the  pale  light  from  the  window.  Saint-Gaudens,  like 
Romney,  was  an  instinctive  maker  of  beautiful  patterns,  a  man  who 
saw  life  picturesquely,  who  knew  it,  and  who  confessed  that  he  had  "to 
fight  against  picturesqueness."  Whatever  he  may  have  fought  against 
and  omitted  in  making  this  relief,  the  result  is  charming,  an  alluring 
picture  of  child  life,  two  little  boys  in  Highland  costume,  the  elder 
holding  his  arm  afl^ectionately  over  the  shoulder  of  the  younger,  the  two 
hands  clasped. 

Equally  pleasing  is  the  low  relief  of  the  Schiff  Children,  of  which 
a  marble  replica  hangs  in  the  permanent  collection  of  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  and  a  bronze  reduction  in  the  Luxembourg  Gallery.  The 
figures  of  the  little  boy  and  girl  are  knitted  together  by  the  graceful 
lines  of  the  shaggy  greyhound's  body.  They  are  in  the  marble  and  yet 
not  of  the  marble;  they  draw  one  to  low  relief,  the  most  difficult  of  all 
sculptural  methods,  making,  even  when  not  particularly  well  done,  an 
appeal  more  intimate  than  sculpture  in  the  round. 

XIV 

In  one  of  his  essays  Mr.  Kenyon  Cox  says:  "I  believe  Saint- 
Gaudens  the  most  complete  master  of  relief  since  the  fifteenth  century." 

Since  the  fifteenth  century!  Yes!  The  fifteenth  century  stiU  stands 
unapproachable.  In  appraising  the  work  of  Saint-Gaudens,  distin- 
guished modern,  whose  genius  has  isolated  him,  and  who  was  the  first 


XXIV 


AN  APPRECIATION 

sculptor  in  America  to  vitalise  the  art,  there  may  be  a  temptation  in 
our  pride  in  his  prowess  to  overemphasize  his  achievement.  Art  never 
dies,  it  slumbers  only,  reawakening  when  a  child  of  genius  is  born  to 
influence  and  educate  his  contemporaries,  and  by  his  achievement  once 
more  to  spill  that  blessed  word  Renaissance  over  the  pages  of  art 
histories.  The  achievement  of  the  ages  in  sculpture  is  so  tremendous 
that  there  is  hardly  an  era  since  civilization  began  when  we  cannot  say 
of  examples  of  plastic  art:  "These  are  unapproachable."  You  can  say 
it  half  a  dozen  times  during  one  afternoon  in  any  museum  in  the  world. 
I  said  it  yesterday  at  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  New  York  standing 
before  a  series  of  sculptors'  small  models,  heads,  torsos  and  feet  of 
queens,  birds,  etc.,  made  2,500  years  ago — perfect;  before  a  Greek  low 
relief  of  a  Young  Horseman  of  the  fourth  century  b.  c. — perfect;  before 
a  bronze  Panther  rolling  on  its  back,  early  Imperial  Roman — perfect. 
One  has  only  to  close  the  eyes  and  make  memory  pictures  of  master- 
pieces by  craftsmen  of  Egypt,  Assyria  and  mighty  Greece;  of  Gothic 
figures  carved  by  unknown  craftsmen  for  cathedrals  when  sculpture  and 
painting  were  the  handmaids  of  architecture;  of  works  by  Donatello  and 
Michelangelo,  to  be  reminded  that  a  modern  must  be  very  gifted  to 
stand  up  among  these  great  memorials  of  the  past  and  win  any  meas- 
ure of  our  approbation. 

XV 

Again  and  again  has  Saint-Gaudens  been  called  a  child  of  the 
Italian  Renaissance,  to  which  he  was  drawn  through  the  example  of 
certain  French  sculptors,  through  the  virile  Rude,  maker  of  the  Marseil- 
laise group  on  the  Arc  de  Triomphe,  through  Dubois,  and  in  a  lesser 
degree  through  Chapu,  Carpeaux  and  Mercie,  who  heralded  what  I 
suppose  I  must  call  the  midnineteenth  century  French  Renaissance  in 
sculpture.  Claux  Sluter,  Pilon,  Goujon,  Houdon  and  Pigalle  do  not 
seem  to  have  influenced  these  Frenchmen  much.  Their  eyes  pierced 
back  to  Italy  in  her  lovely  youth  of  art  where  around  the  miraculous 
Donatello,  early  and  later  masters  group  themselves,  or  follow  on  like 
flowers  in  a  garden  walk,  each  beautiful  in  itself,  ;each  offering  its 
perfume  to  the  aroma  of  that  supreme  flowering  time — Jacopo  della 
Querela,  the  della  Robbias,  Ghiberti,  Desiderio  da  Settignano,  Bernado 
and  Antonio  Rossellino,  Mino  da  Fiesole,  Benedetto  da  Majano.  When 
in  1867  Saint-Gaudens,  a  youth  of  nineteen,  went  to  Paris  to  study  art, 
sculpture  was  awakening  from  one  of  its  recurrent  slumbers.  Ardent 
spirits  had  cast  off  the  shackles  of  pseudo  classicism,  broken  away  from 
formal  or  informal  reverence  for  second-rate  antiques,  those  smooth 
nymphs  with  pitchers  and  smoother  angels  with  harps,  coy  Venuses  and 
heroic  personages  doing  nothing  trivially,  all  the  dreary  statues  that 
block  the  corridors  of  a  bored  academicism.  Instead,  they  looked  at 
Donatello  and  his  kin,  and,  looking,  had  the  inspiration  to  do  what 
Donatello  did,  what  all  strong  souls  do  at  the  appointed  time — to  make 


XXV 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 

that  return  to  Nature  that  recurrently  revivifies  art.  Saint-Gaudens 
arrived  in  Paris  in  1867.  The  year  before  Paul  Dubois's  Florentine 
Singer  had  received  a  medal  of  honour  in  the  Salon.  In  1868,  the  year 
of  the  Universal  Exposition,  Saint-Gaudens  saw  the  Florentine  Singer 
at  the  Exposition.  That  statue  we  are  told  "marked  an  epoch  for  him 
as  it  did  for  modern  sculpture."  The  new  movement  had  begun.  Saint- 
Gaudens  crossed  the  threshold  of  classicism  and  stepped  out  into  the 
radiant  air  of  the  return  to  nature.  Paul  Dubois,  nineteen  years  his 
senior,  became  his  friend  and  remained  his  friend  for  life.  Falguiere 
and  Saint  Marceau  had  just  left  Jouffroy's  studio.  Mercie  was  his 
fellow-student.  Saint-Gaudens  participated  in  the  excitement,  saw 
visions  and  began  to  prepare  himself  for  the  visitations  of  the  muse. 
One  wonders  in  what  direction  his  art  would  have  evolved  had  he  never 
gone  to  Paris,  but  remained  in  America;  had  he  never  seen  the  Florentine 
Singer,  never  met  those  ardent  young  French  sculptors  and  shared  their 
enthusiasm. 

XVI 

In  a  way  he  was  more  fortunate  than  his  companions  in  Jouffroy's 
studio.  He  was  already  a  craftsman,  and  he  was  able  to  support  himself 
during  those  four  years  of  study  in  Paris  by  his  trade  of  cameo-cutting. 
As  a  boy  he  had  served  six  years'  apprenticeship  to  two  cameo  cutters 
in  New  York,  "one  of  the  most  fortunate  things  that  ever  happened  to 
me,"  he  said  in  later  life.  From  his  practical  knowledge  of  the  art  of 
gem-cutting  and  the  years  he  spent  studying  drawing  at  the  Cooper 
Union  and  at  the  National  Academy  of  Design  in  New  York,  he  came 
to  Jouffroy's  studio  equipped  with  a  practical  knowledge,  and  with 
habits  of  close  application,  that  made  a  splendid  foundation  for  his 
imaginative  flights  of  later  years.  The  collection  of  his  works  at  the 
Metropolitan  Museum  contained  a  glass  case  showing  a  photograph  of 
him  at  the  age  of  seventeen  seated  at  his  work  table,  looking  up  from 
the  cameo  which  he  has  been  cutting.  In  the  case  were  topaz  and  onyx 
brooches  that  he  had  carved  in  those  long  past  days,  the  first  steps  of  the 
small  craftsman  who  became  a  great  artist.  It  is  a  long  journey  from 
minute  work  upon  a  topaz  brooch  to  the  large  and  masterly  achievement 
of  the  Sherman  memorial.  What  effort,  what  striving  towards  perfection 
hide  in  those  forty  years! 

XVII 

Surveying  this  life  of  loved  labour,  I  see  it  in  three  divisions,  which 
I  will  call  Prelude,  Interlude  and  Postlude. 

The  Prelude  ends  with  his  first  visit  to  Rome  in  1870  at  the  age 
of  twenty-two,  whither  he  was  driven  from  Paris  by  the  outbreak  of  the 
Franco-German  War.  The  Interlude  extends  from  1870  to  1900,  thirty 
years  of  activity  and  absorption  in  his  art.  The  Postlude  begins  in  1900, 
when  he  returned  from  Paris  an  ill  man  to  settle  in  Cornish,  where  he 
remained,  with  occasional  visits  to  New  York,  until  the  end  came  in  1907. 


XXVI 


AN  APPRECIATION 


As  regards  the  Prelude  and  Interlude,  there  is  little  to  add  of 
external  interest  to  the  bald  details  given  in  the  chronology  ol  his  life 
printed  in  this  volume.  His  youthful  productions,  a  bust  of  his  father 
made  when  he  was  nineteen  and  the  bust  of  William  M.  Evarts,  sug- 
gestive of  Roman  influences,  produced  after  his  return  from  Italy,  are 
not  noteworthy;  they  betray  neither  originality  nor  temperament. 
Neither  do  his  marble  statues  of  Hiawatha  and  Silence,  completed  before 
he  was  twenty-four,  show  promise  of  the  distinction  of  his  later  achieve- 
ment, although  some  may  detect  in  the  Silence  a  foreshadowing  of  the 
figure  in  Rock  Creek  Cemetery.  Any  competent  and  industrious  young 
man  could  have  produced  them;  but  there  was  promise  in  the  Angels 
Adoring  the  Cross,  in  high  relief,  for  the  Church  of  St.  Thomas,  New 
York,  unfortunately  destroyed  by  fire.  A  man  of  no  professed  religious 
belief,  he  did  his  best  work  when  the  subject  was  invested  with  a 
mystical  or  spiritual  significance.  Then  some  slumber  of  flame  within 
him  leaped  up  and  kindled  that  "something  more"  into  his  work  which 
makes  art  significant.  From  actual  flame  and  fire  he  suffered  in  spirit 
and  in  pocket.  In  addition  to  the  group  in  St.  Thomas's  Church,  his 
Angels  on  the  Tomb  of  ex-Governor  Morgan  were  consumed  by  flames, 
and  in  the  disastrous  burning  of  one  of  his  Cornish  studios  in  1904 
there  perished  models,  casts,  drawings,  household  furniture,  bric-a-brac 
and  paintings,  including  the  prized  portrait  that  Bastien  Lepage  had 
made  of  him. 

The  end  of  the  first  decade  of  the  Interlude  period  was  crowned 
by  the  low  relief  of  the  Butler  Children,  and  the  unveiling  of  tht  Farragut, 
which  proclaimed  him  a  master. 

XVIII 

The  years  between  1880  and  igoo,  which  saw  the  completion  in 
1887  of  the  Lincoln  and  The  Puritan,  and  the  Shaw  ten  years  later,  were 
interlude  only  as  the  life  of  man  may  be  called  an  interlude  between 
two  eternities.  Those  were  strenuous  years.  As  if  with  prevision  that  he 
would  die  all  too  young,  he  would  bewail,  one  of  his  intimates  tells  me, 
the  brief  time  there  was  to  do  all  that  he  meant  to  do.  He  was  a  reticent 
man,  talking  little  in  company,  not  averse  to  Bohemian  gatherings,  but 
fining  the  part  of  onlooker  rather  than  participator.  I  have  heard  him 
described  as  a  nevrose,  but  with  his  nerves  well  under  control;  often 
indifferent  to  opposition,  but  capable  of  sudden  outbursts,  as  when  he 
ground  a  plaster  medallion  beneath  his  feet  when  the  criticism  of  the 
subject  had  irritated  him  to  exasperation.  Work  calmed  him.  An 
assistant  tells  me  that  sometimes  he  would  arrive  at  the  studio  in  a  state 
of  suppressed  nervous  excitement,  but  that  the  moment  his  hands 
touched  the  clay  and  began  to  shape  and  press  the  material,  he  would 
gradually  become  quite  calm  and  intent.  One  of  the  intimate  friend- 
ships of  his  life  was  with  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  who  sat  for  him  in 
New  York  when  delayed  in  that  city  by  illness  on  his  way  to  the 


xxvn 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


Adirondacks  in  1887.  The  Puritanic,  mystical  part  of  Stevenson,  com- 
bined with  his  charm,  ease  of  expression  and  the  range  of  his  frolic 
imagination,  fascinated  Saint-Gaudens.  He  was  forever  quoting  him, 
the  prayers  as  well  as  the  poems.  Readers  of  the  "Letters"  know  what 
Stevenson  thought  of  "My  dear  godlike  sculptor."  Stevenson's 
philosophy  of  happiness  in  the  shadow  of  death  must  have  affected 
Saint-Gaudens,  who  disliked  speaking  of  death,  although  suggestions  of 
our  common  end  by  symbol  or  by  implication  are  not  infrequent  in  his 
works,  but  always  as  triumphant  or  consolatory,  never,  as  in  Albert 
Diirer,  as  a  menace. 

XIX 

It  was  in  1887  when  he  knew  Stevenson  intimately  that  he  produced 
The  Puritan,  a  statue  in  which  he  has  expressed  not  only  the  personality 
of  a  type,  but  also  the  spirit  of  a  world-moving  movement.  If  any 
modern  effigies  deserve  the  appellation  great,  this  statue  is  in  the  category. 
I  saw  it  on  a  day  of  deep  snow,  standing  dourly  on  its  little  hill  in 
Springfield,  the  very  essence  of  rigid  Puritanism.  Its  correct  name  is 
Deacon  Samuel  Chapin,  who  was  one  of  the  founders  of  Springfield, 
but  the  world  has  agreed  to  call  it  The  Puritan.  A  bust  Saint-Gaudens 
made  of  Chester  W.  Chapin,  a  descendant  of  the  deacon,  served  as  a 
model. 

Eighteen  years  later,  in  1905,  he  was  asked  by  the  New  England 
Society  of  Pennsylvania  for  a  replica  to  be  placed  in  Philadelphia.  The 
sculptor  consented,  but  gave  them  more  than  the  contract  demanded. 
The  new  statue  was  to  stand  against  the  City  Hall,  conterminous  to  the 
traffic,  not  on  a  hill  above  the  sight-line,  as  at  Springfield.  The  sculptor, 
taking  the  model  in  hand  again,  made  certain  changes  which  he  deemed 
necessary  for  its  new  environment.  The  head  was  remodelled  and 
changed,  the  flying  cloak  was  altered,  the  hand  grasping  the  cudgel  was 
advanced  and  the  Bible  was  reversed  so  that  the  lettering  "Holy  Bible" 
was  seen.  Thus  The  Puritan,  sojourning  for  years  in  the  craftsman's 
brain,  shaped  itself  into  The  Pilgrim. 

Saint-Gaudens,  as  I  have  said,  also  wished  to  change  a  detail  in 
the  Shaw  Monument,  but  the  alteration  in  the  position  of  the  figure  of 
Death  or  Sleep  was  made  from  the  original  model.  The  bronze  rehef 
at  Boston  remains  as  it  was  when  unveiled  in  1897.  It  is  the  most 
learned  and  accomplished  of  his  works — he  gave  to  it  twelve  years  of 
labour.  Some  of  the  heads  he  remodelled  many  times,  and  no  one  can 
look  at  it  without  wonder  at  the  characterization  of  the  rapt  negro 
faces.  This  black  regiment,  the  light  of  a  sudden  patriotism  trans- 
figuring their  faces,  sweeps  impetuously  forward,  led  by  their  commander, 
Colonel  Shaw,  to  a  death  that  is  to  give  all,  through  the  genius  of  the 
sculptor,  immortal  life  so  long  as  bronze  lasts. 

Above  floats  the  symbolic  figure  clasping  poppies  and  a  laurel 
branch  to  her  breast,  interknitting,  at  this  supreme  moment,  the  two 


xxvm 


AN  APPRECIATION 


races.  The  relief,  framed  in  old  trees,  stands  on  a  terrace  built  out  from 
the  roadway  above  Boston  Common  just  beneath  the  State  House. 
Even  to  those  ignorant  of  the  life  and  death  of  Shaw  and  his  faithful 
band  of  the  despised  race,  and  there  are  some  such  who  pause  and 
gaze  at  it,  this  concrete  symbol  of  devotion  to  a  cause  provokes  tears 
which  are  all  the  more  poignant  because  they  will  not  flow.  Perhaps  it 
is  the  sight  of  that  compassionate  angel,  the  bearer  of  poppies,  who 
knows  the  end  and  loves  the  brave  condemned,  that  makes  this  martial 
monument  so  affecting. 

XX 

The  period  which  I  have  called  Postlude  began  when  Saint- 
Gaudens  settled  in  Cornish  in  1900.  He  had  still  some  fruitful  years  of 
work  which  were  bestowed  upon  the  completion  of  the  Sherman  for 
New  York,  the  reconstruction  of  the  Stevenson  for  Edinburgh,  and  the 
production  of  the  Seated  Lincoln  for  Chicago,  the  Caryatides  for  the 
Buffalo  Art  Gallery,  the  Whistler  Memorial  for  West  Point,  the  Parnell 
for  Dublin,  the  allegorical  groups  for  the  Boston  Public  Library,  the 
Phillips  Brooks  Monument,  the  Baker  Monument  and  the  designs  for 
the  new  coinage;  but  he  knew  in  his  heart  that  death  was  but  delayed. 
She  tarried  nearly  seven  years. 

The  Postlude  period  brings  me,  a  stranger,  near  to  him,  as  shortly 
before  the  opening  of  the  exhibition  of  his  works  at  the  Metropolitan 
Museum,  it  was  my  privilege  to  spend  a  few  days  at  his  Cornish  home. 
I  roamed  through  his  haunts,  lingered  in  his  studios,  and  sleighed  over 
the  beautiful  upland  country  which  he  loved.  It  was  good  to  hear  of  the 
enjoyment  he  derived  from  open  air  relaxations — skating,  skeeing, 
tobogganing  and  sleighing.  More  than  once  he  turned  out  the  whole 
studio  of  assistants,  crying:  "Sculpture  isn't  in  it  with  tobogganing." 
His  son  has  published  in  the  Century  Magazine  extracts  from  two 
letters  he  wrote  to  friends  in  Paris  expressing  his  newly  aroused  love  for 
the  out-of-doors: 

"I  would  never  have  believed  it,  nor  do  I  suppose  you  will  believe 
me  now,  but  I  am  enjoying  the  rigorous  young  winter  up  here  keenly. 
Snow  over  all,  sun  brilliant  and  supreme,  sleighs,  sleigh-bells  galore, 
and  a  cheerfulness  that  brings  back  visions  of  the  halcyon  winter  days 
of  my  boyhood. 

"We  skate,  and  I  play  games  upon  the  ice  as  I  played  them  thirty- 
seven  years  ago.  I  am  a  little  more  stiff,  but  that  makes  no  difference, 
since  I  still  feel  young.  ...  It  is  very  far  from  the  terrible,  black,  sad 
days  of  the  winters  of  London  and  Paris,  and  even  New  York." 

When  the  shadow  of  the  end  began  to  stretch  towards  him,  I  do 
not  think  that  he  found  the  twilight  so  gloomy  as  he  imagined  it  might 
be  in  the  days  of  his  robust  health.  The  downward  ways  to  the  valley 
were  gradual,  and  the  desire  to  work  continued  through  the  vicissitudes 
of  that  via  dolorosa.    When  too  weak  to  stand,  he  would  sit  by  his 


XXIX 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


assistants  sketching  his  ideas  upon  a  pad;  when  too  weak  to  sit,  he 
was  carried  in  an  improvised  sedan  chair  from  one  studio  to  another, 
where  he  reclined  on  couches  directing  and  suggesting.  Inward  con- 
solation came  to  him,  as  to  all  fine  spirits.  I  think  I  realized  what  that 
consolation  was  as  I  sat  in  a  room  of  his  Cornish  home,  surrounded  by 
mementoes  of  his  presence. 

XXI 

I  sat  in  the  room  at  night  with  the  flames  from  the  wood  fire  inter- 
mittently revealing  the  objects.  Sometimes,  when  a  log  fell  and  the 
blaze  leaped,  I  could  distinguish  hanging  on  the  wall  of  the  next  cham- 
ber the  portrait  that  John  S.  Sargent  painted  years  ago  of  Mrs.  Saint- 
Gaudens  and  their  son  Homer. 

I  sat  in  the  room  at  night  and  three  heads  steeped  the  atmosphere 
with  their  presence.  The  first  was  his  own  portrait,  a  reproduction  of 
which  is  printed  as  the  last  illustration  to  this  volume,  a  strong,  beautiful 
face,  a  noticeable  head,  doer  as  well  as  thinker,  touched  with  the  sadness 
that  marks  the  lineaments  of  all  who  create,  wrestling  to  release  beauty 
of  form  or  of  the  fancy  from  the  stubborn  storehouses  of  the  world. 
The  eyes  are  small  and  piercing,  the  forehead  square,  downward 
stretches  the  straight  Greek  line  from  brow  to  nose,  of  which  he  made 
amusing  use  in  a  caricature  he  drew  of  himself. 

The  second  head  was  a  study  of  the  Victory  of  the  Sherman  statue, 
and  from  it  there  seemed  to  shine  a  refulgence  as  if  the  parted  lips  were 
proclaiming  the  ultimate  triumph  of  spirit  over  matter.  I  looked  from 
this  head  to  the  head  of  the  man  who  fashioned  it,  and  in  the  silence  of 
the  room  the  ancient  promise  of  victory  over  the  grave  seemed  new,  as 
if  just  uttered. 

Then  I  turned  to  the  third  head — a  head  of  Christ.  This  and  the 
low-relief  plaque  of  his  wife  were  the  last  pieces  of  sculpture  worked 
upon  by  Saint-Gaudens  with  his  own  hands.  The  everlasting  appeal  that 
the  life  of  the  Founder  of  Christianity  makes  to  all,  whatsoever  their 
shade  of  religious  behef,  or  unbelief,  may  be,  is  so  universal  that  it  is 
with  no  surprise  we  learn  that  during  his  long  illness  the  sculptor 
brooded  with,  I  imagine,  gleams  of  mystical  elation  upon  that  life,  and 
strove  to  express  all  he  felt  of  its  beauty,  wonder  and  pathos  with  the 
means  of  expression  nearest  to  him — his  craft.  On  the  tables  of  the 
room  were  books  interpreting  the  life  of  Christ,  and  in  his  working- 
studio  across  the  lawn  I  was  next  day  to  see  his  monument  to  Phillips 
Brooks  wherein  the  standing  figure  of  Christ  plays  so  significant,  so 
touching  a  part;  and  another  memorial,  commissioned  by  a  bereaved 
family,  where  Christ  is  seated  beneath  hovering  angels  whose  hands 
are  folded  in  prayer. 

XXII 

In  one  of  the  studios  which  I  visited  next  day  his  assistants  were 
enlarging  certain  models.  Standing  on  a  platform  rising  and  spreading 


XXX 


AN  APPRECIATION 


out  like  a  gallery  above  the  entrance  to  the  studio  was  the  figure  of 
Phillips  Brooks,  large,  domineering,  the  left  hand  grasping  a  Bible,  the 
right  raised  in  exhortation.  Three  fingers,  without  a  hand,  without  an 
accompanying  body,  rest  upon  and  caress  his  left  shoulder.  A  few  feet 
away  stands  the  figure  of  Christ.  By  himself  the  man  looks  too  dramatic; 
by  himself  his  Master  looks  too  ideal.  But  when  I  saw  a  model  of  the 
two  figures  placed  together  under  a  pillared  canopy,  I  had  a  quick 
object-lesson  in  Saint-Gaudens's  genius  for  merging  the  real  and  the 
ideal,  for  touching  the  clay  with  spirit,  for  giving  a  work  something  of 
that  unseen  world  of  mystery  which  encompasses  our  material  activities. 
You  see  the  preacher,  the  man,  the  fighter  for  Christ,  and  if  you  look 
very  closely,  you  also  see  in  the  shade  of  the  canopy,  resting  three 
fingers  upon  the  shoulder  of  this  modern  shepherd  of  his  flock,  the 
figure  of  his  Lord  with  veiled  head,  suffering  yet  not  sorrowful,  that  the 
sculptor's  fingers  had  hardly  ceased  reverently  to  fondle,  when  his 
spirit  was  released. 

XXIII 

In  his  private  studio  the  personality  of  the  sculptor  seemed  even 
closer.  Approaching  it  I  made  a  little  detour,  and  saw,  far  below,  in  the 
lower  part  of  the  groves  of  Aspet,  the  altar  with  the  columned  canopy 
which  served  as  a  background  for  the  masque  played  by  the  residents 
of  Cornish  on  June  23,  1905,  to  celebrate  the  twentieth  anniversary  of 
the  year  when  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Saint-Gaudens  first  made  their  summer 
home  in  New  Hampshire.  A  golden  bowl  was  presented,  and  the 
sculptor  designed  a  plaque  in  low  relief  to  commemorate  the  celebration, 
which  he  purposed  to  perpetuate  in  marble.  I  passed  on  to  the  studio, 
pausing  to  admire  a  reproduction  of  a  section  of  the  Parthenon  frieze, 
faintly  coloured,  decorating  the  wall  of  the  loggia,  from  which  a  view 
outstretches  over  the  New  Hampshire  Highlands.  I  entered  the  studio, 
which  is  unchanged,  untouched  since  he  last  sat  there.  In  fine  weather 
the  wide  doors  would  be  thrown  apart;  he  loved  sun  and  air;  he  loved 
swimming  in  deep  pools,  and  the  sound  of  running  waters. 

I  saw  copies  of  certain  great  memorials  of  the  past  with  which  this 
eclectic  of  fine  taste  liked  to  surround  himself — Michelangelo's  The 
Eternal  Creating  Man,  Donatello's  St.  George,  and  the  naiVe  portrait  of  a 
Mother  and  Daughter  of  A.  D.  79  from  the  villa  of  Boscoreale,  near 
Vesuvius;  and  among  modern  things  an  etching  of  himself  by  Zorn, 
and  a  group,  modelled  by  Sargent,  of  a  portion  of  his  Dogma  of  the 
Redemption  in  the  Boston  Pubhc  Library.  Behind  a  screen  I  saw  a 
bronze  head,  corroded,  severed  from  the  body,  one  of  the  few  objects 
saved  from  the  fire  in  1904.  It  seemed  familiar,  intimate  as  a  face  one 
has  known  for  half  a  lifetime,  but  I  did  not  at  once  realise  that  it  was 
a  cast  of  the  head  of  the  woman  in  P^ock  Creek  Cemetery,  known  as 
the  J  dams  Memorial,  the  hooded,  brooding  figure  that  some  call 
Nirvana,  some  The  Peace  of  God,  but  to  which  the  sculptor  gave  no 


XXXI 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


name,  that  semiconscious  figure,  the  sad  music  of  humanity  still  moaning 
in  her  ears,  contemplative  but  not  complaining,  awaiting  the  Awakening, 
resigned  to  the  stillness  of  the  pause  which  is  her  present  Eternity. 

XXIV 

I  sat  in  the  silent  studio,  and  recalled  the  day  when  I  went  out 
from  Washington  to  seek  this  monument  in  Rock  Creek  Cemetery.  It 
is  not  easy  to  find;  indeed,  I  have  heard  of  some  who  have  sought  and 
have  failed  to  discover  her,  hidden  in  a  clump  of  pines,  laurels  and 
evergreens.  The  background  of  the  statue,  a  plain  granite  slab,  faces 
outward.  It  is  half  hidden  in  the  trees  which  arch  above  it  and  tangle 
about  the  base.  There  is  nothing  upon  this  obverse  side  of  the  monument 
but  two  intertwined  laurel  wreaths,  with  a  row  of  bound  sheaves  be- 
neath, suggesting,  perhaps,  that  they  who  sow  in  tears  shall  reap  in  joy. 

One  might  pass  that  way  and  fail  to  perceive  the  little  path  that 
admits  to  the  cloistral  bower  where  she  sits.  I  pushed  my  way  through 
the  hedge  of  foliage,  and  entered  this  little  open-air  temple  of  silence 
and  reconciliation.  AH  was  very  still.  No  sound  from  the  outside  world 
reached  to  this  fastness.  I  ascended  two  steps  and  stood  upon  a  hexa- 
gonal paved  plot,  with  a  massive  stone  bench  filling  three  sides  of  the 
hexagon.  On  the  fourth  side  sits  the  nameless  figure — waiting. 

XXV 

I  saw  her  again,  in  a  cast,  among  the  sculptor's  collected  works 
at  the  Metropolitan  Museum,  New  York,  still  holding  her  secret  close, 
still  emouvant  even  without  the  architectural  setting,  the  protecting 
trees  and  the  surrounding  solitude.  I  did  not  see  her  immediately  on 
entering  the  sculpture-hall  for  facing  me  towered  the  heroic  figure  of 
Lincoln,  that  consummate  work  wherein,  for  the  first  time  in  history, 
the  frock  coat  has  been  forced  to  garb  a  personality  with  beauty  and 
romance.  It  is  idle  to  say  that  it  was  impossible  for  a  sculptor  to  fail 
with  such  a  subject  as  Lincoln.  Some  have  failed;  others  have  been 
successful  in  varying  degrees,  but  only  Saint-Gaudens  has  caught  the 
very  idea  of  the  national  and  beloved  hero,  the  rugged  power  and 
sweetness  of  the  face,  the  emotional  angularities  of  the  long  body,  and 
the  sense  of  will  controlled  by  simple  nobihty  of  character.  Does  he  not 
seem  to  be  waiting  to  utter  the  words  that  are  inscribed  on  the  pedestal: 
"Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes  might,  and  in  that  faith  let  us  to 
the  end  dare  to  do  our  duty  as  we  understand  it "  ? 

Still  grander  looks  the  statue  in  Lincoln  Park,  Chicago,  of  which 
this  is  a  cast,  for  there  the  idea  of  an  audience  chamber  is  suggested 
by  a  circular  stone  exedra,  sixty  feet  across,  which  surrounds  the  low 
pedestal;  but  at  the  Metropolitan  Museum  it  was  not  difficult  to  imagine 
that  the  whole  of  the  vast  hall  was  his  audience  chamber,  and  that  we 


xxxn 


AN  APPRECIATION 

were  under  the  influence  of  his  spirit  as  well  as  of  the  spirit  of  the 
sculptor  who  inspired  the  clay  and  made  it  Lincoln. 

From  the  standing  Lincoln  I  turned  to  Lincoln  seated  in  his  arm- 
chair, the  head  lowered  as  if  in  thought,  modelled  twenty  years  later; 
thence  to  the  allegorical  groups  for  the  Boston  Library,  rough  but 
instinct  with  character  and  idealism;  thence  to  the  plaster  models  for 
the  new  coinage,  delightful  designs,  but  which  required  a  considerable 
reduction  of  the  relief  before  practical  use  could  be  made  of  them; 
thence  to  Mr.  Kenyon  Cox's  portrait  of  him,  working,  the  happy  artist, 
twice  happy,  doing  the  work  he  loves,  and  leaving  the  world  better  for 
that  work. 

I  looked  around  for  a  final  survey  of  his  achievement,  ranging 
from  the  head  of  his  father,  his  first  work,  to  the  head  of  Christ,  his  last; 
from  the  minute  cameo  brooch  cut  by  the  boy  to  the  stupendous 
Sherman  modelled  by  the  man  in  his  prime;  from  the  small  plaque  of 
Bastien  Lepage  to  the  heroic  figure  of  Lincoln;  from  the  light-touched 
gaiety  of  the  Sargent  medallion  to  the  learned  mastery  of  the  Shaw 
monument;  from  the  formal  and  uninspired  Silence  of  1871,  with  finger 
on  lips,  to  the  subtlety  of  the  eloquent  and  inspired  Silence  of  1891  in 
Rock  Creek  Cemetery — proclaiming  the  sure  and  silent  evolution  of 
the  artist. 

Let  the  rest  be  silence — and  gratitude. 


/ 


XXXUl 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


HIS  WORKS:  CHRONOLOGY 


[In  the  following  pages  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  record  chrono- 
logically all  the  works  produced  by  Augustus  Saint-Gaudens  from  1867 
to  1907.  /  am  indebted  for  information  to  members  of  the  sculptor's  family, 
to  his  friends  and  assistants,  and  to  the  official  catalogue  of  the  Memorial 
Exhibition.] 


His  Father,  Bernard  P.  E.  Saint-Gaudens   1867 

Bronze  bust.    15  in.  high.    Signed  and  dated. 

Miss  Belle  Gibbs  1870 

Miss  Florence  Gibbs  1870 

Hiawatha   1871 

Marble.   Seated  figure. 

This  early  work,  which  had  been  lost  sight  of  for  fifteen 
years,  stands  on  the  lawn  of  a  house  near  Saratoga 
Springs,  N.  Y. 

Fisher  Boy  1871 

Statue. 

Edward  W.  Stoughton  1872 

Marble  bust 

Edwards  Pierpont  1873 

Marble  bust. 

Mrs.  Pierpont  1873 

Marble  bust. 

Silence   1874 

Marble   statue.      Heroic  size.     Masonic  Temple,  New 
York. 

William  Maxwell  Evarts   1874 

Marble  bust.  Saint-Gaudens's  first  commissioned  portrait 
bust. 

Theodore  Dwight  Woolsey  1 875-1 879 

Marble  half  statue,  dated  1 875-1 879.    Yale  University. 

Benjamin  Greene  Arnold  1876 

Marble  bust. 


XXXV 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


Fresco  Painting  1876 

Trinity  Church,  Boston. 

Henry  E.  Montgomery,  D.D  1876 

Bronze  medaUion.   Church  of  the  Incarnation,  New  York. 

George  W.  Maynard  1877 

Bronze  plaque.    8|  x  5I  in. 

David  Maitland  Armstrong  1877 

Bronze  plaque.    7  x  in. 

William  L.  Pickneir  1877 

Bronze  plaque.    7!  x  4I  in. 

William  Gedney  Bunce  •  .  1877 

Bronze  plaque.    6|  x  5J  in. 

Angels  Adoring  the  Cross  1878 

Groups  in  high  relief  in  collaboration  with  John  La  Farge. 
St.  Thomas's  Church,  New  York.    Destroyed  by  fire. 

Miss  Helen  Maitland  Armstrong  .  1878 

Bronze  plaque.    65  x  5I  in. 

Charles  F.  McKim  1878 

Bronze  plaque.    7I  x  5  in. 

Augustus   Saint-Gaudens,  Charles  F.  McKim  and  Stanford 

White  (Caricature)  1878 

Bronze  medallion. 

Richard  Watson  Gilder,  Wife  and  Infant  Son  1879 

Bronze  plaque.    8J  x  17  in. 

Rodman  Gilder  1^79 

Bronze  plaque.    13^  x  15I  in. 

Le  Roy  King  Monument  1^79 

Slab  with  oak  branches  carved  upon  it.    Newport,  R.  I. 

Emilia  Ward  Chapin  1879 

Bronze  plaque.    92  x  6  in. 

Dr.  William  E.  Johnston  1879 

Bronze  plaque.    9I  x  6|  in. 

F.  D.  Millet  1879 

Bronze  plaque.    io|  x  6|  in. 


xxxvi 


HIS  WORKS:  chronology' 


Dr.  Walter  Gary  1879 

Bronze  plaque.    9I  x  6|  in. 

There  is  also  a  variation  of  this  relief  without  the  hat. 

Miss  Maria  M.  Love  1879 

Bronze  plaque.    9I  x  6|  in. 

Dr.  Henry  Shiff  1880 

Bronze  plaque.    io|  x  iij  in. 

A  reduction  is  in  the  Luxembourg. 

John  S.  Sargent,  R.A  1880 

Bronze  medal.    2|  in.  diameter. 

Tomb  of  Ex-Governor  Morgan  1880 


Three  angels  at  the  foot  of  a  Greek  cross  rising  above  the 
tomb.  The  height  of  the  entire  monument  was  40  feet. 
These  figures  were  destroyed  by  fire  at  Hartford 
(Conn.)  Cemetery,  while  the  models  were  being  put  into 
marble.  They  were  the  first  of  the  series  of  figures  re- 
peated with  variations  in  the  Amor  Cant  as,  the  angel  on 
the  tomb  of  Anna  Maria  Smith,  at  Newport,  and  the 
memorial  to  a  young  girl  in  St.  Stephen's  Church, 
Philadelphia. 


William  Oxenard  Mossley  1880 

Medallion  and  bust. 

Prescott  Hall  Butler's  Two  Children  1881 

Bronze.    Low  Irelief.    24  x  35I  in.    Dated  1880-1881. 
On  the  wall  of  Mrs.  Butler's  dining-room,  in  New  York, 
in  an  oak  frame  designed  by  Stanford  White. 

Admiral  David  Glasgow  Farragut  Unveiled  1881 

Madison  Square,  New  York  City. 


This  was  the  first  statue  commissioned  from  Saint- 
Gaudens  for  a  public  place.  It  was  modelled  in  Paris, 
exhibited  in  the  Salon  of  1880,  and  unveiled  in  New 
York  in  1881,  "marking  an  epoch  in  American  sculp- 


ture and  decorative  art."   Signed  and  dated  Paris,  1879- 
1880. 

M.  McCormick  1881 

Plaque. 

Leonie  Marguerite  Lenoble  1881 

Plaque.    Circular,  about  9  in. 

Mrs.  Charles  Carroll  Lee  and  Miss  Lee  1881 

Bronze  plaque    14^x23!  in. 


xxxvii 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


Miss  Sarah  Redwood  Lee  1881 

Bronze  plaque. 

Josiah  Gilbert  Holland  1881 

Bronze  plaque.    15^x10!  in. 

Samuel  Gray  Ward  1881 

Bronze  plaque.    i8|  x  14I  in. 

Saint-Gaudens  considered  this  one  of  his  best  reliefs.  A 
reduction  is  in  the  Luxembourg. 

Two  Caryatides  1881 

For  marble  mantelpiece  in  the  house  of  Cornelius  Vander- 
bilt,  New  York 

Sculpture  Decoration  in  Villard  House,  New  York  ....  1882 

Homer  Saint-Gaudens  1882 

Bronze  plaque.    2o|xi6|  in. 

A  low  relief  of  the  sculptor's  son,  aged  seventeen  months. 

Ex-President  Chester  Allen  Arthur  1882 

Bust. 

Commodore  Vanderbilt  1882 

Bronze  plaque. 

Two  Sons  of  Cornelius  Vanderbilt  1882 

Bronze  plaque.  i6x26|in. 

Miss  Gertrude  Vanderbilt  at  the  age  of  seven  1882 

Bronze  plaque.  i6fx23|in. 

Dr.  Alexander  Hamilton  Vinton   .  1883 

Bronze.    Heroic  size.    Middle  relief.  Half-length  figure. 
Emmanuel  Church,  Boston. 

Robert  R.  Randall  1884 

Bronze  statue.    Sailor's  Snug  Harbor,  Staten  Island. 

Mrs.  Stanford  White  1884 

Marble  relief.    23  x  I2|  in. 

Professor  Asa  Gray  _  1884 

Bronze  plaque.    Low  relief.    35^x27  in. 
Botanic  Gardens,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

Dr.  Holland  Monument  1884 

Springfield,  Mass. 

Dr.  Silas  Weir  Mitchell  .     .    ;  1884 

Bronze  plaque.    20^x16!  in. 


xxxviii 


HIS  WORKS:  CHRONOLOGY 


Portrait  of  a  Lady 


1884 


Bronze  high  rehef.   Three-quarter  length   figure.  Right 


arm  rests  upon  a  piano. 


Charles  Timothy  Brooks 


1884 


Memorial  tablet  in  Channing  Church,  Newport,  R.  L 


Two  Angels  Seated 


1885 


Bronze.   Stewart  tomb  at  Greenwood  Cemetery,  Brooklyn. 

Dr.  Henry  W.  Bellows   1885 

Bronze    memorial   tablet.     Full    length,    middle  relief, 

lettered,  with  decorated  background.    The  Dr.  McCosh, 

modelled  later,  is  akin  in  design. 
Church  of  All  Souls,  New  York. 

William  Evarts  Beaman  1885 

Bronze  medallion.    i8|  in.  diameter. 

Chief  Justice  Waite  

Bust.    Hall  of  Justice,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Son  of  Joseph  H.  Choate  1886 

Marble  bust. 

Henry  P.  Haven  

Bronze  medallion.    New  London  Library. 

Angel  on  Tomb  of  Anna  Maria  Smith  1886 

A  variation  of  the  Morgan  tomb  angels  and  the  Amor 
Cantos.    Island  Cemetery,  Newport,  R.  I. 

Fountain  in  Lincoln  Park,  Chicago  1886 

Abraham  Lincoln.    Standing  figure  Unveiled  1887 

Bronze  statue,  signed  and  dated  1887.  Heroic  size.  Stand- 
ing before  a  chair  in  an  attitude  characteristic  of  Lincoln 
when  rising  to  make  a  speech.  The  statue  stands  at  the 
south  end  of  Lincoln  Park,  in  Chicago,  the  idea  of  an 
audience  chamber  being  further  carried  out  in  the  great 
circular  stone  exedra,  sixty  feet  across,  which  surrounds 
the  low  pedestal,  in  the  design  of  which  Saint-Gaudens 
collaborated  with  Stanford  White. 

Amor  Caritas  1887 

Bronze.    High  relief.   8  ft.  9  in. ;  4  ft.    Luxembourg  Gallery. 
The  original  idea  of  this  was  embodied  in  the  figures  on 
the  Morgan  tomb  at  Hartford,  Conn. 


XXXI X 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


Deacon  Samuel  Chapin  ("The  Puritan")  1887 

Bronze  statue  in  Springfield,  Mass.,  signed  and  dated 
1887.  Heroic  size.  Puritan  costume,  with  a  peak- 
crowned  hat,  long  flowing  cloak  and  carrying  a  staff. 
Inscription:  "  1505  Anno  Domino  1675.  Deacon  Samuel 
Chapin.  One  of  the  founders  of  Springfield." 
A  similar  statue  (not  a  replica)  called  "  The  Pilgrim " 
was  made  for  the  New  England  Society  of  Pennsyl- 
vania in  1905  and  stands  in  City  Hall  Square,  Phila- 
delphia. The  head  was  remodelled  and  changed ; 
changes  were  also  made  in  the  cloak,  and  the  book  was 
reversed  so  that  the  lettering  " Holy  Bible"  on  the  back 
is  seen, 

Chester  W.  Chapin  

Bust. 

The  head  served  as  a  study  for  the  Deacon  Chapin  who 
was  his  ancestor  and  the  prototype  of  the  "Puritan" 
statue. 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson  1887 

ReUef  in  rectangular  form;  signed  and  dated  New  York, 
September,  1887.  Full-length  figure,  seen  in  profile, 
looking  left,  reclining  in  a  bed,  the  lower  limbs  partly 
concealed  by  the  coverlet;  the  left  hand  holding  a  manu- 
script, the  knees  being  drawn  up  to  support  it,  and  the 
right  hand  poised  in  air,  with  a  cigarette  between  the 
fingers.  A  border  of  ivy  leaves  and  berries  extends 
across  the  top  of  the  plaque,  with  the  inscription  and 
signature  written  horizontally  below  it,  the  figure  of  the 
winged  horse  occurring  between  the  first  two  stanzas 
of  the  inscription. 
The  sittings  for  the  head  and  shoulders  took  place  in 
New  York  while  Stevenson  was  ill  there  on  his  way  to 
the  Adirondacks.  The  hands  were  modelled  from 
studies  made  at  Manasquan  just  before  he  left  for 
Samoa. 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson   1887 

Bronze  circular  medallion.  Low  relief.  Signed  and  dated 
1887.  Diameter  (vertical)  35I  in.;  (horizontal)  34I 
in.  Similar  in  design  and  inscription  to  the  model  de- 
scribed above,  but  differing  as  follows :  Foot  of  bed  and 
lower  quarter  of  figure  not  visible;  ivy  border  and  verses  of 
inscription  made  to  conform  to  the  circular  shape  of  the 
medallion. 

A  bronze  reduction  is  in  the  Luxembourg. 

xl 


HIS  WORKS:  CHRONOLOGY 


Robert  Louis  Stevenson  1887-1902 

Rectangular  bronze  memorial  tablet  in  Saint  Giles's 
Cathedral,  Edinburgh,  Scotland.  Low  relief.  Signed 
and  dated  1887-1902.  Height  of  relief,  5  ft.  7  in.;  width, 
9  ft.  in.  A  variant  of  the  former  design,  the  figure 
being  the  same,  but  shown  in  full  length,  covered  with 
a  travelling  rug  in  place  of  the  coverlet,  having  a  quill 
pen  in  hand  in  place  of  the  cigarette,  and  resting  upon 
a  couch  in  place  of  the  bed,  with  leaves  of  manuscript 
scattered  upon  the  floor ;  and  instead  of  the  ivy  border 
extending  across  the  top  and  drooping  at  sides  of  the 
relief,  a  garland  of  laurel  interwoven  at  the  ends  with 
Scotch  heather  and  Samoan  hibiscus.  The  outline  of  a 
ship  is  shown  in  the  lower  right-hand  corner. 


Mrs.  Grover  Cleveland  1887 

Bronze  medallion. 

Two  Lions  in  Siena  Marble  1887 

Boston  PubUc  Library. 

WilHam  M.  Chase  1888 

Bronze  plaque.  2ifx29|in. 

Children  of  Jacob  H.  Schiff     .     .........  1888 

Bronze.  Low  relief.  A  marble  replica  is  in  the  Metro- 
politan Museum,  New  York,  and  a  bronze  reduction 
in  the  Luxembourg. 

William  M.  Evarts  1888 

Bronze  plaque.    23  x  io|  in. 

Bust  of  General  Sherman  1888 

Eighteen  sittings  were  given  in  1887.  The  bust  supplied 
material  for  the  head  of  Sherman  on  the  equestrian  statue 
at  the  entrance  to  Central  Park,  New  York. 

Edwin  Hubbell  Chapin,  D.D.  

Bronze  relief.  36|x32|in. 

Fourth  Universalist  Church,  New  York. 

Mrs.  Schuyler  Van  Rensselaer   1888 

Bronze  plaque. 

A  reduction  is  in  the  Luxembourg. 

Oakes  Ames  1888 

Large  medallion. 

Judge  Tracy  1888 

Plaque. 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


Kenyon  Cox  1889 

Bronze  plaque.    19^  x  yf  in. 

Executed  two  years  after  the  portrait  painted  by  Mr.  Kenyon 
Cox  of  Saint-Gaudens. 

Washington  Medal  1889 

Bronze  medal.  Low  relief.  To  commemorate  the  inaugura- 
tion of  George  Washington  as  first  President  of  the  United 
States. 

Dr.  James  McCosh  1889 

Bronze  memorial  tablet.    Full  length,  left  hand  resting 

upon  reading  desk. 
Princeton  University. 

Jules  Bastien  Lepage  1889 

Bronze  plaque.  14^  x  19I  in.  Modelled  when  Bastien 
Lepage  was  finishing  his  "Joan  of  Arc."  In  return  the 
artist  painted  a  portrait  of  Saint-Gaudens,  which  was 
burnt  at  the  fire  in  his  Cornish  studio  in  1904.  A  re- 
duction is  in  the  Luxembourg. 

Hollingsworth  Memorial  1889 

Bronze.    5  ft.  9  in.  x  2  ft.  9I  in.    Boston  Museum. 

Miss  Violet  Sargent  1890 

Bronze  plaque.    Full  length. 
Playing  a  guitar. 

Adams  Monument,  Rock  Creek  Cemetery,  Washington,  D.  C.  .  1891 
Bronze  statue.  Unsigned  and  undated.  A  female  seated 
figure.  The  monument  consists  of  a  block  of  granite 
against  which  the  figure  leans,  and  which  forms  one  side 
of  an  hexagonal  plot  of  about  twenty  feet  in  diameter, 
enclosed  in  a  clump  of  trees.  Opposite  and  occupying 
three  sides  of  the  hexagon  is  a  massive  stone  bench. 

Seal  for  the  Public  Library,  Boston,  Mass  1891 

Stone  rectangular  high  relief.  A  shield  bearing  a  book  is 
supported  on  either  side  by  nude  figures  of  boys,  each 
holding  a  torch. 

Study  for  the  Head  of  "Diana"  1891 

On  Madison  Square  Garden  tower. 

Peter  Cooper  1891 

Tablet  in  Cooper  Union. 

Monument  to  Mrs.  Hamilton  Fish   1892 

Two  figures  adoring  cross. 

In  collaboration  with  Stanford  White. 

xlii 


HIS  WORKS:  CHRONOLOGY 

Diana  

Bronze  figure  on  the  tower  of  Madison  Square  Garden. 
One  of  his  few  nudes.  Originally  the  figure  was  much 
taller.  Thinking  it  too  large,  Saint-Gaudens  and  Stan- 
ford White  replaced  it  by  the  present  smaller  version. 
A  large  statue  of  Diana,  modelled  in  1892,  was  exhibited  in 
bronze  at  the  World's  Fair  in  Chicago  in  1893,  and  now 
forms  the  weathervane  for  Montgomery  Ward's  tower 
on  the  Lake  Front  in  Chicago. 

The  Columbus  Medal  1892 

Modelled  for  the  Chicago  Exhibition  of  1893  in  commemo- 
ration of  the  400th  anniversary  of  the  landing  of  Colum- 
bus. 

Charles  Cotesworth  Beaman  

Bronze  plaque.  26^  x  15^  in.  A  reduction  is  in  the  Luxem- 
bourg. 

President  Garfield  Monument  

Bust  of  Garfield  and  allegorical  figure  of  the  "Republic." 
Fairmount  Park,  Philadelphia.  In  collaboration  with 
Stanford  White. 

Tomb  for  Mr.  Henry  Nivins.    Mount  Auburn  

Miss  Annie  Page  

Bronze  head. 

William  Astor  Chanler  

Bronze  bust. 

Martin  Brimmer  

Marble  bust  and  medallion. 

Memorial  to  Colonel  Robert  Gould  Shaw.  .  .  .  Unveiled 
Bronze  relief  opposite  the  State  House,  Boston,  Mass. 
Equestrian  figure  of  Shaw  surrounded  by  his  black  foot- 
soldiers,  who  are  marching  forward.  A  female  figure, 
symbolising  Death  and  Fame,  floats  above  and  a  little 
in  advance  of  the  figure  of  Shaw,  the  position  being  nearly 
horizontal.  The  left  arm  is  extended,  palm  upward,  and 
the  right  arm  clasps  to  the  breast  poppies  and  a  laurel 
branch,  the  whole  enveloped  in  sweeping  draperies.  The 
commission  for  the  memorial  to  Colonel  Shaw,  com- 
mander of  the  Fifty-fourth  Massachusetts  Regiment 
(colored  troops),  who  fell  at  Fort  Wagner,  was  given  by 
the  State  of  Massachusetts  in  1884.  The  work,  with  its 
many  modifications,  extended  over  an  interval  of  twelve 
years,  the  completed  monument  being  unveiled  in  1897. 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


General  John  A.  Logan  1897 

Bronze  equestrian  statue.    Chicago  Lake  Front. 

Peter  Cooper  1897 

Seated  bronze  statue  under  canopy  at  the  side  of  Cooper 
Union,  New  York. 

William  Dean  Howells  and  Daughter  1898 

Bronze  plaque. 

A  reduction  is  in  the  Luxembourg. 

Miss  Mildred  Howells   1898 

Bronze  medallion. 

Charles  A.  Dana  1898 

Bronze  low  rehef.    37!  x  19!  in. 

Maxwell  Memorial  

Tablet  on  boulder  in  Prospect  Park,  Brooklyn. 

Mrs.  Charles  Russell  Lowell  1899 

Marble.    Low  relief. 

Mrs.  Charles  C.  Beaman  1900 

Bronze  plaque. 

Hon.  David  Jayne  Hill  1901 

Marble  bust. 

Jacob  Crowninshield  Rogers  1901 

Medallion. 

Justice  Horace  Gray,  United  States  Supreme  Court  ....  1901 
Bronze  plaque. 

Governor  Roger  Wolcott  1 901-1902 

Marble  relief. 

Robert  Charles  Billings  1901 

Medallion.    Boston  Public  Library. 

Mrs.  John  Chipman  Gray  1902 

Bronze  plaque. 

Senator  Macmillan  1902 

Bust. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wayne  MacVeagh  1902 

Bronze  plaque. 

Governor  Roswell  P.  Flower  1903 

Bronze  statue.    Watertown,  N.  Y. 

xliv 


HIS  WORKS:  CHRONOLOGY 


Monument  to  General  William  Tecumseh  Sherman .  .  Unveiled 
Gilt  bronze  group.  At  the  south  entrance  to  Central  Park, 
New  York.  Heroic  size.  Figure  of  General  Sherman  on 
horseback,  in  uniform.  Before  the  horse  and  rider  walks 
a  winged  temale  figure — Nike-Eirene,  or  Victory-Peace — 
laurel-crowned,  right  arm  extended  and  holding  in  her 
left  hand  a  palm  branch.  The  studies  for  the  head  of 
Sherman  were  made  from  life  in  1888,  the  commission  for 
the  group  being  received  and  work  begun  about  1892  and 
continued  in  Paris  in  1897,  and  in  1901  at  Cornish;  the 
horse  and  rider,  without  the  Victory,  being  exhibited  at 
the  Salon  of  the  Champ  de  Mars  in  1899,  the  whole  in 
plaster  at  the  Paris  Exposition  of  1900,  and,  with  altera- 
tions, at  the  Pan-American  Exposition,  Buffalo,  in  1 901. 
Eleven  years  in  all  of  study  and  alteration  elapsed  before 
the  group  was  finished  and  unveiled  on  Decoration  Day, 
1903,  at  the  south  entrance  to  Central  Park,  New  York. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Stanley  Matthews  

Plaque. 

Mrs.  Charles  W.  Gould  

Marble  bust.    15I  in.  high. 

This  bust  was  the  result  of  studies  of  the  same  subject 
extending  over  several  years,  a  marble  relief  being  exe- 
cuted between  the  years  1884  and  1894,  and  a  marble 
bust  in  the  round  in  1 894-1 895. 

Hon.  John  Hay  

Marble  bust. 

Dean  Sage  

Caricatures  of  Henry  Adams,  Charles  A.  Piatt  and  James  Wall 

Finn  

Bronze  medallions. 

Marcus  Daly  

Bronze  statue.    Butte,  Montana. 

Bronze  Plaque  

Low  relief.  32I  x  19I  in.  Commemorating  the  masque  of 
"The  Golden  Bowl,"  given  at  Cornish  to  celebrate  the 
twentieth  anniversary  of  Saint-Gaudens's  coming  there. 

Greek  Victory  

Bronze  head.    Metropolitan  Museum,  New  York. 

Greek  Victory  

Medal  (head). 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


The  Pilgrim  1905 

Bronze  statue.  Philadelphia. 
(See  page  XXVIII) 

Charles  Stewart  Parnell  1906 

For  Dublin,  Ireland. 

Bronze  statue,  with  right  hand  upraised  standing  in  front 
of  a  lofty  obelisk. 

Designs  for  the  New  United  States  Coinage   1907 

Double  eagle,  eagle  and  one  cent  piece. 

Frederic  Ferris  Thompson  1906 

Marble  medallion.  Teachers  College,  New  York. 

William  C.  Whitney  1907 

Bust. 

Marcus  A.  Hanna  1907 

Bronze  statue  for  Cleveland,  Ohio. 

Sketch  of  Figure  of  Painting  for  Proposed  Freer  Gallery  at 

Washington  1907 

Whistler    Memorial     at  United    States    Military  Academy, 

West  Point,  N.  Y  1907 

Marble  tablet.  Low  rehef.  Height,  21  ft.,  2  in.;  width,  3  ft. 
In  collaboration  with  Mr.  Henry  Bacon. 

Abraham  Lincoln  (Seated  Figure)  1907 


Bronze  statue.  Heroic  size.  Seated  in  arm-chair,  body  and 
head  directed  to  the  front,  head  slightly  lowered  as  if 
in  thought;  right  hand  open,  palm  down,  on  knee;  left, 
closed  and  resting  on  arm  of  chair;  feet,  set  squarely 
on  circular  base.  Across  the  back  of  the  chair  and 
drooping  to  the  floor,  a  flag.  This  was  one  of  Saint- 
Gaudens's  last  statues,  destined  for  Chicago  by  bequest 
of  the  late  John  Crerar  of  that  city. 

Two  Groups  for  Entrance  to  Boston  Public  Library      .     .     .  1907 
One  of  four  figures,  the  other  of  three. 

1.  Law,   Executive  Power  and  two  figures  representing 
Love. 

2.  Music,  Labour  and  Science. 

The  models  were  complete  at  the  time  of  Saint-Gaudens's 
death,  but  not  the  enlargements. 

Eight  Caryatides  1907 

For  the  Albright  Gallery,  Buffalo. 

Six  were  completely  finished  at  the  time  of  his  death;  two 
almost  finished. 


xlvi 


HIS  WORKS:  CHRONOLOGY 

Magee  Fountain,  Stele,  Basin  and  Statue  of  Plenty    ....  1907 
For  Carnegie  Institute,  Pittsburgh. 

Rev.  Phillips  Brooks  1907 

For  exterior  of  Trinity  Church,  Boston.  The  figure  of 
Christ,  half  concealed  in  the  shadow  of  a  canopy,  rests 
his  fingers  upon  the  shoulder  of  the  preacher. 

The  Baker  Monument  IQO? 

Seated  figure  of  Christ,  with  attendant  angels.  The  sculptor 
was  at  work  upon  this  during  his  last  illness. 

Mrs.  Augustus  Saint-Gaudens  1907 

Bronze  relief.  36  x  21  in.  Three-quarters  length  figure,  in 
profile,  turned  to  left ;  in  right  hand  a  bowl  of  flowers,  the 
left  holding  up  the  skirt  of  dress.  Background  of  two 
Doric  columns  with  landscape ;  dog  roughly  sketched 
in  lower  left  corner. 

Study  for  the  Head  of  Christ  1907 

Marble  head  on  square  block  of  marble.  16  in.  high. 
About  three-quarters  life  size. 


xlvii 


* 


PHOTOGRAPHIC  REPRODUCTIONS 
OF  THE  WORKS  OF 
AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 


i874 

WILLIAM    MAXWELL  EVARTS 

Marble  bust.  Height  23  in.  This  was  his  first  commissioned  portrait  bust. 
The  order  was  given  in  Rome,  the  modelHng  being  done  in  New  York  imme- 
diately after  his  return  from  Italy. 


In  the  possession  of  Miss  Mary  M.  Evarts. 


Copyright  iyo8  by  de  W.  C.  Ward 


i877 

WILLIAM    GEDNEY  BUNCE 

Bronze  plaque.  Low  relief.  Height  6j  in.;  width  5^  in.  Boat  in  lower 
right-hand  corner. 

In  the  possession  of  Mr.  W.  C.  Bunce. 


Copyright  iqo8  by  de  W .  C.  Ward 


i879 

RODMAN   DE   KAY  GILDER 

Bronze  plaque,  low  relief.  Height  133  in.;  width  15I  in.  A  detail  from  the 
group  of  "  Richard  Watson  Gilder,  Wife  and  Infant  Son,"  but  more  fully 
carried  out. 

INSCRIPTION:  RODMAN  DE  KAY  GILDER.  PARIS,  SEPTEMBER, 
1879. 

In  the  possession  of  Mr.  R.  W.  Gilder. 


i879 

DOCTOR  WALTER  GARY 

IJronze  plaque,  low  relief.  Height  in. ;  width  6f  in.  At  left,  coat  of  arms. 
In  the  possession  of  Mr.  Thomas  Cary. 


Copyright  i  qo8  by  de  W.  C.  Wanl 


i88o 

DR.   HENRY  SHIFF 


Bronze  plaque,  low  relief.  Height  lof  in.;  width  iij  in.  Figure  of  toad 
introduced  at  the  right, 

INSCRIPTION  in   Italian.     The  translation   reads:    TO  THE  DEAR 

FRIEND  DOCTOR  HENRY  SHIFF  AT  THE  AGE  OF  FORTY-SEVEN. 
LOVER  OF  THE  TOADS  AND  SMELLS  OF  ROME,  DILETTANTE  IN 
PHILOSOPHY  AND  THE  FINE  ARTS,  ADMIRER  OF  THE  FELINE  TYPE: 
IN   PARIS  IN  THE   MONTH  OF  MAY  OF  THE   YEAR  MDCCCLXXX. 

In  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Augustus  Saint-Gaudens. 
A  reduction  is  in  the  Luxembourg. 


Copyright  iqo8  hy  de  W.  C.  Ward 


i88o 

JOHN   S.   SARGENT,  R.A. 

Bronze  medal,  low  relief.    Diameter  25  in. 

The  INSCRIPTION  reads:  MY  FRIEND  JOHN  SARGENT,  PARIS,  JULY 
MDCCCLXXX,    BRUTTO  RITRATO. 

In  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Augustus  Saint-Gaudens. 


Copyright  1908  by  de  II'.  C.  Ward 


i88i 


CHILDREN   OF   PRESCOTT  HALL 
BUTLER 

Bronze  low  relief.  October,  1880 — March,  1881.  Height  24  in.;  width 
35^  in.  In  upper  left  corner,  an  endless  knot  with  legend  "Dabit  Deus  His 
Quoque  Finem." 

The  INSCRIPTION  reads:  CHARLES  STEWART  BUTLER  IN  HIS 
FOURTH  YEAR.  LAWRENCE  SMITH  BUTLER  IN  HIS  SIXTH  YEAR. 
TO  MY  FRIEND  PRESCOTT  HALL  BUTLER,  SIXTH  OF  JULY,  EIGHTEEN 
HUNDRED  AND  EIGHTY.  MARCH  TWENTY-SIXTH,  EIGHTEEN  HUN- 
DRED   AND  EIGHTY-ONE. 

In  the  possession  of  Mrs.  P.  H.  Butler. 


i88i 


ADMIRAL    DAVID  GLASGOW 
FARR AGUT 

Bronze  statue,  heroic  size,  on  decorated  stone  pedestal.  Exhibited  at  the 
Salon  of  1880,  and  unveiled  in  Madison  Square  Garden  in  New  York  City  in 
1881.  This  was  the  first  statue  commissioned  from  Saint-Gaudens  for  a 
public  place.  F  arragut  is  in  the  uniform  of  a  United  States  Admiral.  The 
stone  pedestal  forms  a  semicircular  seat,  divided  by  the  pier  upon  which  the 
figure  stands,  and  terminating  at  either  end  in  carved  dolphins.  Upon  the 
central  pier  is  a  symbolic  sword,  plunged  down  through  the  waves  which  flow- 
across  it  and  over  two  seated  female  figures,  representing  Courage  and  Loy- 
alty, carved  in  low  relief  at  either  side.  The  seat  is  raised  three  steps  from 
the  level  of  the  park,  and  the  space  about  its  foot  is  paved  with  pebbles  in 
which  a  bronze  crab  is  sunk. 

The  INSCRIPTION  contains  a  biographical  sketch  and  the  following  appre- 
ciation :  DAVID  GLASGOW  FARRAGUT.  THAT  THE  MEMORY  OF  A 
DARING  AND  SAGACIOUS  COMMANDER  AND  GENTLE  GREAT-SOULED 
MAN,  WHOSE  LIFE  FROM  CHILDHOOD  WAS  GIVEN  TO  HIS  COUNTRY, 
BUT  WHO  SERVED  HER  SUPREMELY  IN  THE  WAR  FOR  THE  UNION, 
MDCCCLXI-MDCCCLX  V,  MAY  BE  PRESERVED  AND  HONORED  .  .  .  HIS 
COUNTRYMEN  HAVE  SET  UP  THIS  MONUMENT  A.  D.  MDCCCLXXXI. 
BORN    .    .    .    MDCCCI.       DIED    .    .    .  MDCCCLXX. 


i88i 

MISS   SARAH   REDWOOD  LEE 

Bronze  plaque,  low  relief. 

INSCRIPTION:   SARAH    REDWOOD    LEE   AT   THE  AGK    OF  SIXTEEN. 

In  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Charles  Carroll  Lee. 


Copyright  igo8  Ay  dc  IV.  C.  Ward 


i88i 

SAMUEL   GRAY  WARD 

Bronze  plaque.    Height  1 8^  in. ;  width  14J;  in. 

INSCRIPTION  :  SAMUEL  GRAY  WARD 
MDCCCLX  X  XI. 

In  the  possession  of  Mr.  Thomas  W.  Ward. 
A  reduction  is  in  tlie  Luxembourg 


NEW     YORK,  MAY, 


i882 

HOMER   SHIFF   S  A  I  N  T  -  G  A  U  D  E  N  S 


Bronze  low  relief.    Height  20^  in. ;  width  162  in. 

INSCRIPTION :  TO  MY  FRIEND  DOCTOR  HENRY  SHIFF  THIS 
PORTRAIT  OF  MY  SON  HOMER  SHIFF  S  A I  NT-G  A  U  D  E  N  S  AT  THE  AGE 
OF   SEVENTEEN  MONTHS. 

In  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Augustus  Saint-Gaudens. 

A  replica  in  marble  was  presented  to  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  by 
Mr.  Jacob  H.  Schiff. 

A  bronze  reduction  is  in  the  Luxembourg. 


Copyright  igo8  by  de  W .  C.  Wan! 


1884 

MRS.    STANFORD  WHITE 

Marble  middle  relief,  signed  and  dated,  February  7,  1884.    2^  by  I2j  incbes. 


Copyright  igo8  ft)'  dc  IT.  C.  Ward 


i884 

PROFESSOR   ASA  GRAY 

Bronze  plaque,  low  relief.  Height  35J  in.;  width  27  in.  In  upper  ri 
corner,  within  a  wreath  of  flowers,  three  miniature  books  with  word  ve- 
TAS  on  their  pages. 

INSCRIPTION:    ASA    GRAY  MDCCCLXXXIV. 

In  the  possession  of  Harvard  University. 


Copyright  1908  by  dc  11'.  C.  Ward 


1885 


DOCTOR   HENRY  WHITNEY 
BELLOWS 

Bronze  memorial  tablet,  middle  relief.    Height  10  ft.  4  in.;  width  4  ft.  5I  in. 

INSCRIPTION:  FORTY-THREE  YEARS  MINISTER  OF  THIS  CHURCH, 
TO  WHICH  HE  GAVE  THE  NAME  ALL-SOULS.  PRESIDENT  OF  THE 
UNITED  STATES  SANITARY  COMMISSION  FROM  1861  TO  1878.  HENRY 
WHITNEY  BELLOWS,  D.D.,  BORN  IN  BOSTON  JUNE  IITH,  1814.  DIED 
IN  NEW  YORK  JANUARY,  1882. 

In  the  possession  of  the  Trustees  of  All  Souls  (Unitarian)  Church,  New  York. 


Copyright  igoS  by  tie  W.  C.  War/I 


188; 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Bronze  statue.  Heroic  size.  In  Lincoln  Park,  Chicago.  The  idea  of  an 
audience-chamber  is  suggested  by  a  circular  stone  exedra,  si.xty  feet  across, 
which  surrounds  the  low  pedestal,  in  the  design  of  which  Mr.  Saint-Gaudens 
collaborated  with  the  late  Stanford  White.  The  inscription  includes  an  ex- 
tract from  the  Cooper  Union  speech  of  i860  : 

LET  us  HAVE  FAITH  THAT  RIGHT  MAKES  MIGHT,  AND  IN  THAT 
FAITH  LET  US  TO  THE  END  DARE  TO  DO  OUR  DUTY  AS  WE  UNDER- 
STAND IT. 

Twenty  years  later,  in  1907,  the  year  of  his  death,  Saint-Gaudens  completed 
a  statue  of  Lincoln  seated,  a  gift  by  the  late  John  Crerar  to  Chicago. 


188; 


AMOR  CARITAS 

Bronze  high  relief,  in  tlie  Luxembourg  Gallery,  Paris.  Total  height  8  ft. 
Q  in.;  width  4  ft.  The  sculptor  repeated  this  figure  with  variations  several 
times.  The  origmal  idea  was  embodied  m  the  figures  on  the  Morgan  tomb  at 
Hartford,  Conn.,  which  were  destroyed  by  fire. 


Copyright  1908  by  tie  H'.  C.  Ward 


188; 

DEACON   SAMUEL  CHAPIN 
("the  puritan") 

Bronze  statue  in  Springfield,  Mass.  Heroic  size.  Figure  of  a  man  walking; 
Puritan  costume,  with  a  peak-crowned  hat,  long  flowing  cloak,  and  carrying 
a  staff.    Branches  of  pine  needles  scattered  underfoot. 

INSCRIPTION :  1595  ANNO  DOMINI  1675.  DEACON  SAMUEL 
CHAPIN,  ONE    OF   THE    FOUNDERS    OF  SPRINGFIELD. 

The  Pilgrim,  a  variation  of  the  above,  was  executed  in  1905. 


Copyriglil  1905  by  Ihc  Uclroil  PItoloiiraphic  Cnmpany 


i888 


WILLIAM   MERRITT  CHASE 

Bronze  plaque,  low  relief.  Height  21  §  in.;  width  292  in.  In  the  lower  left 
corner  is  a  medallion  with  design  of  winged  horse.  The  clay  model  of  this 
plaque,  in  somewhat  different  form,  is  represented  on  the  sculptor's  easel  in 
Mr.  Kenyon  Cox's  portrait  of  Saint-Gaudens.     (See  Frontispiece.) 

In  the  possession  of  Mr.  W.  M.  Chase. 


i888 

CHILDREN   OF  JACOB   H.  SCHIFF 

Bronze  low  relief.  Height  5  ft.  in.;  width  4  ft.  3  in.  Sculptured  frame 
effect  of  plinth.    Columns  and  cornice  hung  with  garlands. 

A  marble  replica  was  presented  to  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  b)'  Mr. 
Jacob  H.  SchifF  in  1906. 

A  bronze  reduction  is  in  the  Luxembourg. 


Copyright  1908  by  de  IT.  C.  Ward 


i888 

GENERAL   WILLIAM  TECUMSEH 
SHERMAN 

Bronze  bust.  Total  height  31^  in.  Modelled  from  life  in  eighteen  sittings. 
This  bust  served  as  the  study  for  the  head  of  Sherman  in  the  equestrian  statue 
unveiled  in  1903  in  New  York. 

In  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Paul  Thorndike. 


1889 

KENYON  COX 

Bronze  plaque,  low  relief.    Height  igh  in. ;  width  yf  in. 

INSCRIPTION :  KENYON  cox,  PAINTER,  IN  HIS  THIRTY-THIRD 
YEAR,  BY  HIS  FRIEND,  AUGUSTUS  S  AINT-G  A  U  D  E  N  S,  MDCCCLXXXIX. 

In  the  possession  of  Mr.  Kenyon  Cox. 

Executed  two  years  after  the  portrait  painted  by  Mr.  Kenyon  Cox  of 
Mr.  Saint-Gaudens. 


Copyright  1908  by  dc  W.  C.  Ward 


1889 


WASHINGTON  MEDAL 

Bronze  medal,  low  relief.    Diameter  45  in. 

(Obverse)  Bust  of  Washington,  side  view,  head  in  profile,  directed  left;  Con- 
tinental costume.  At  the  right,  the  fasces  of  magistracy.  Forming  a  border 
about  the  edge,  thirteen  stars. 

INSCRIPTION:  GEORGE  WASHINGTON,  PATER  PATRIAE. 
MDCCLXXXIX. 

(Reverse)  Upper  half,  an  American  eagle,  with  wings  spread,  claws  holding 
arrows  and  olive  branch  bearing  shield  with  legend  "E  Pluribus  Unum." 
Lower  left,  coat  of  arms  of  New  York  State.  Thirty-eight  stars  forming 
border. 

INSCRIPTION  :  TO  COMMEMORATE  THE  INAUGURATION  OF 
GEORGE  WASHINGTON  AS  FIRST  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 
OF  AMERICA  AT  NEW  YORK  APRIL  XXX,  MDCCLXXXIX,  BY  AUTHORITY 
OF  THE  COMMITTEE  ON  CELEBRATION,  WASHINGTON  MEDAL,  NEW 
YORK,   APRIL   XXX,  MDCCCLXXXIX. 


Copyright  igo8  by  dc  IT".  C.  W'ard 


1889 

DOCTOR   JAMES  McCOSH 

Bronze  memorial  tablet,  middle  relief.    Height  8  feet  3I  in. ;  width  4  ft.  7I  in. 

INSCRIPTION:  JAMES  MCCOSH,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  FOR  TWENTY  YEARS 
PRESIDENT  OF  PRINCETON  COLLEGE,  OCTOBER  XXVII,  MDCCCLXVIII- 
JUNE  XX,  MDCCCLXXX  VIII.  ERECTED  IN  HIS  HONOR  BY  THE  CLASS 
OF   MDCCCLXXIX.      JUNE   XVIII,  MDCCCLXXXIX. 

In  the  possession  of  Princeton  University. 


Copyright  1008  by  <le  II'.  C,  Ward 


1889 

JULES   B  AS  TIEN-LEPAGE 

Bronze  plaque,  low  relief.    Height  142  in.;  width  igh  in. 

INSCRIPTION :  JULES  BASTIEN-LEPAGF.  AETATIS  XXXI.  PARIS 
MDCCCLXXX. 

In  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Augustus  Saint-Gaudens. 
A  reduction  is  in  the  Luxembourg. 


Copyright  igo8  by  dc  W.  C.  Ward 


/ 


I89I 

ADAMS  MONUMENT 
ROCK    CREEK  CEMETERY 
WASHINGTON,    D.  C. 

Bronze  statue,  unsigned  and  undated. 

The  monument,  which  in  enclosed  in  a  clump  of  trees,  consists  of  a  block  of 
granite  against  which  the  figure  leans,  and  which  forms  one  side  of  an 
hexagonal  plot  of  about  twenty  feet  in  diameter.  Opposite  and  occupying 
three  sides  of  the  hexagon  is  a  stone  bench.  The  figure  has  been  variously 
interpreted,  although  Saint-Gaudens  gave  no  name  to  it. 


Frnm  a  Copley  Print.  Copyright  1S99  by  Curtis  Gr=  Cimcroit 


1892 


DIANA 

Bronze  figure,  surmounting  the  Madison  Square  Garden  tower.  The  figure 
was  originally  much  larger.  Thinking  it  too  large,  Saint-Gaudens,  in  con- 
sultation with  Stanford  White,  the  architect  of  the  tower,  removed  the  figure 
and  replaced  it  by  the  present  smaller  version. 

A  large  statue  of  Diana,  modelled  in  1892,  was  exhibited  in  bronze  at  the 
World's  Fair  in  Chicago  in  1893,  and  now  forms  the  weathervane  for  Mont- 
gomery Ward's  tower  on  the  Lake  Front  in  Chicago. 


1894 

CHARLES   COTESWORTH  BEAMAN 

Bronze  plaque,  low  relief.    Height  263  in.;  width  15J  in. 

INSCRIPTION:  MDCCCLXXXIV.  CHARLES  COTESWORTH  BEAMAN, 
BY  HIS  FRIEND,  AUGUSTUS  S  A I NT-G  A  U  D  E  N  S . 

In  the  possession  of  Mrs.  C.  C.  Beaman. 
A  reduction  is  in  the  Luxembourg. 


Copyngbl  1908  by  de  W .  C.  Ward 


1 895 

GARFIELD  MONUMENT 

Fairmount  Park,  Philadelphia. 

A  tall  marble  quadrilateral  stele  with  Doric  pilasters  at  the  angles,  supporting 
an  entablature  upon  which  rests  the  bust.  Below  in  a  niche  stands  the  figure 
of  the  Republic. 

INSCRIPTION  (on  shield):  JAMES  ABRAM  GARFIELD,  PRESIDENT 
OF  THE   UNITED  STATES,  MDCCCLXXXI. 


i897 

MEMORIAL  TO 
ROBERT  GOULD  S^HAW 

Bronze  relief.    Boston  Common. 

INSCRIPTION  (to  the  right  of  the  floating  figure  of  Death  or  Fame): 

OMNIA    RELINQUIT    SERVARE  REMPUBLICAM. 

INSCRIPTION  (beneath  the  relief):   ROBERT  GOULD  SHAW.  KILLED 

WHILE  LEADING  THE  ASSAULT  ON  FORT  WAGNER.  JULY  TWENTY- 
THIRD,   EIGHTEEN   HUNDRED  AND  SIXTY-THREE. 

The  commission  for  this  memorial  to  Colonel  Shaw,  Commander  of  the 
Fifty-fourth  Massachusetts  Regiment  (colored  troops),  who  fell  at  Fort 
Wagner,  was  given  to  Saint-Gaudens  by  the  State  of  Massachusetts  in  1884. 
The  work,  with  its  many  modifications,  extended  over  an  interval  of  twelve 
years,  the  completed  monument  being  unveiled  in  1897. 


DETAIL  FROM  THE  SHAW 
MONUMENT 


Copyright  1908  by  dc  W.  C.  Ward 


i897 

PETER  COOPER 

Cooper  Union,  New  York  City 

INSCRIPTION :  ERECTED  BY  THE  CITIZENS  OF  NEW  YORK  IN 
GRATEFUL  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PETER  COOPER,  FOUNDER  OF  THE 
COOPER  UNION  FOR  THE  ADVANCEMENT  OF  SCIENCE  AND  ART, 
ANNO   DOMINI  MDCCCXCVII. 

Saint-Gaudens  attended  classes  at  the  Cooper  Union  in  his  youth. 


Copyright  1908  by  dc  IV.  C.  Ward 


PETER  COOPER 

Head  of  the  bronze  statue.  Height 


Copyright  1908  by  de  W.  C.  Ward 


1898 

WILLIAM   DEAN   HOWELLS  AND 
MISS  HOWELLS 

Bronze  plaque,  low  relief. 

INSCRIPTION:  MILDRED  AND  WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWELLS,  NEW 
YORK    MDCCCXCVIII.       FROM    AUGUSTUS    S  AI NT-G  A  U  D  E  N  S . 

In  the  possession  of  Mr.  W.  D.  Howells. 
A  replica  is  in  the  Luxembourg. 


1898 

CHARLES   ANDERSON  DANA 

Bronze  low  relief.    Height  375  in. ;  width  19I  in. 

INSCRIPTION  :  CHARLES  ANDERSON  DANA,  MDCCCXIX- 
MDCCCXC  VII. 

In  the  possession  of  Mr.  William  M.  Laffan. 


Copyrighl  iqo8  by  tie  W.  C.  Want 


1899 

JOSEPHINE   SHAW  LOWELL 

Marble  low  relief. 

Josephine  Shaw  Lowell.  Widow  of  General  Charles  Russell  Lowell, 
cember  16,  1843-October  12,  1905. 

In  the  possession  of  Miss  Carlotta  Russell  Lowell. 


Copyright  igo8  by  lie  \V .  C.  Ward 


HORACE   GRAY,  ASSOCIATE  JUSTICE 
OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  SUPREME 
COURT 

Bronze  plaque,  low  relief.  Height  2qJ  in.;  width  32  7-10  in.  Robe  of 
office.    In  left  upper  corner  seal  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 

INSCRIPTION :  HORACE  GRAY  IN  HIS  SEVENTY-FOURTH  YEAR. 
WASHINGTON,  D.  C,  APRIL,  MDCCCCI.  MAJOR  HAEREDITAS  VENIT  A  JURE 
ET  LEGIBUS. 

In  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Horace  Gray. 


1902 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

Rectangular  bronze  memorial  tablet  in  Saint  Giles's  Cathedral,  Edinburgh, 
Scotland;  low  relief,  signed  and  dated  1887-1902.  Height  7  ft.  2  in.;  width 
9  ft.  2  in.  A  variant,  but  much  larger,  of  the  relief  made  in  1887,  when 
Stevenson  was  delayed  in  New  York  by  illness  on  his  way  to  the  Adirondacks. 
The  sittings  for  the  head  and  shoulders  took  place  in  New  York.  The  hands 
were  modelled  from  studies  made  at  Manasquan,  just  before  Stevenson  left 
for  Samoa.  The  figure  is  here  shown  in  full  length,  covered  with  a  travel- 
ling-rug in  place  of  the  coverlet,  having  a  quill  pen  in  hand  in  place  of  a 
cigarette,  and  resting  upon  a  couch  in  place  of  the  bed,  with  leaves  of  manu- 
script scattered  upon  the  floor,  and  instead  of  the  ivy  border,  extending 
across  the  top  and  drooping  at  sides  of  the  relief,  a  garland  of  laurel  inter- 
woven at  the  ends  with  Scotch  heather  and  Samoan  hibiscus.  The  outline 
of  a  ship  is  shown  in  the  lower  right  corner. 

INSCRIPTION  (above,  Stevenson's  "Prayer"):  GIVE  US  GRACE  AND 

STRENGTH  TO  FORBEAR  AND  TO  PERSEVERE.  GIVE  US  COURAGE 
AND  GAIETY,  AND  THE  QUIET  MIND.  SPARE  TO  US  OUR  FRIENDS, 
SOFTEN  TO  US  OUR  ENEMIES.  BLESS  US,  IF  IT  MAY  BE,  IN  ALL  OUR 
INNOCENT  ENDEAVOURS.  IF  IT  MAY  NOT,  GIVE  US  THE  STRENGTH 
TO  ENCOUNTER  THAT  WHICH  IS  TO  COME,  THAT  WE  MAY  BE  BRAVE 
IN  PERIL,  CONSTANT  IN  TRIBULATION,  TEMPERATE  IN  Vi^RATH,  AND 
IN  ALL  CHANGES  OF  FORTUNE,  AND  DOWN  TO  THE  GATES  OF  DEATH, 
LOYAL  AND  LOVING  TO  ONE  ANOTHER. 

(On  plinth,  below  relief  proper)  :  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON,  born  at 

VIII  HOWARD  PLACE,  EDINBURGH,  NOVEMBER  XIII,  MDCCCL,  DIED 
AT  VAILIMA,  ISLAND  OF  UPOLU,  SAMOA,  DECEMBER  III,  MDCCCXCIV. 
THIS  MEMORIAL  IS  ERECTED  IN  HIS  HONOUR  BY  READERS  IN  ALL 
QUARTERS  OF  THE  WORLD  WHO  ADMIRE  HIM  AS  A  MASTER  OF 
ENGLISH  AND  SCOTTISH  LETTERS,  AND  TO  WHOM  HIS  CONSTANCY 
UNDER  INFIRMITY  AND  SUFFERING,  AND  HIS  SPIRIT  OF  MIRTH, 
COURAGE  AND  LOVE,   HAVE   ENDEARED  HIS  NAME. 

"Under  the  wide  and  starry  sky 
Dig  the  grave  and  let  me  lie. 
Glad  did  I  live  and  gladly  die. 
And  I  laid  me  down  with  a  will. 

"This  be  the  verse  you  grave  for  me: 
Here  he  lies  where  he  longed  to  be; 
Home  is  the  sailor,  home  from  the  sea, 
And  the  hunter  home  from  the  hill." 


1902 

MR.    &   MRS.   WAYNE  MacVEAGH 

Bronze  low  relief.  Height  3  ft.  25  in. ;  width  4  ft.  9  in.  Two  figures  at  either 
end  of  long  bench  placed  under  a  pine  tree. 


1903 


MONUMENT  TO  GENERAL 
WILLIAM   TECUMSEH  SHERMAN 

Bronze  group.  South  entrance  to  Central  Park,  New  York.  Figure  of  Gen- 
eral Sherman  on  horseback,  in  uniform.  Before  the  horse  and  rider  walks  a 
winged  female  figure — Nike-Eirene,  or  Victory- Peace — laurel-crowned,  right 
arm  extended  and  holding  in  her  left  hand  a  palm  branch. 

The  studies  for  the  head  of  Sherman  were  made  from  life  in  1888,  the  com- 
mission for  the  group  was  received  and  work  begun  about  1892  and  continued 
in  Paris  in  1897;  the  horse  and  rider  without  the  Victory  were  exhibited  at 
the  Salon  of  the  Champ  de  Mars  in  1899,  the  whole  in  plaster  at  the  Paris 
Exposition  of  1900,  and,  with  alterations,  at  the  Pan-American  Exposition, 
Buffalo,  in  1901..  Eleven  years  in  all  of  study  and  alteration  elapsed  before 
the  group  was  finished  and  unveiled  on  Decoration  Day,  1 903,  at  the  south 
entrance  to  Central  Park,  New  York. 


Cupyrighl  1905  by  dc  IT.  C.  Ward 


1905 

SHERMAN; MONUMENT: 
LATER   STUDY   FOR  THE 
HEAD   OF  VICTORY 

Bronze  head.    Height  of  head  8J  in. ;  of  pedestal  42  in. 

INSCRIPTION  :     NIKH-EIPHNH    (  V ICTO  R  Y-P  E  A  C  e) 

Although  Saint-Gaudens  had  a  preference  for  this  head,  he  did  not  consider 
that  it  accorded  so  well  with  the  statue  as  the  first  study.  The  latter  was  used 
for  the  equestrian  statue,  and  the  profile  of  this  second  study  was  later  repro- 
duced in  relief  as  the  model  for  the  new  cent  and  the  ten-dollar  coin. 


Copyright  1908  by  de  W.  C.  Ward 


1905 


THE  PILGRIM 

Erected  in  City  Hall  Square,  Philadelphia,  in  1905. 

A  commission  from  the  New  England  Society  of  Pennsylvania,  which  asked 
for  a  replica  of  The  Puritan;  but  the  sculptor  gave  it  what  is  virtually  a 
new  work,  which  he  called  The  Pilgrim. 

The  head  was  remodelled  and  changed  and  the  staff  was  advanced;  changes 
were  also  made  in  the  cloak,  and  the  book  was  reversed  so  that  the  lettering 
"  Holy  Bible  "  on  the  back  is  seen. 


1905 

PLAQUE   COMMEMORATIVE  OF 
THE   CORNISH  CELEBRATION 
JUNE   23,  1905 

Bronze  plaque  in  low  relief.  Height  32!  in.;  width  195  in.  Design  :  Tem- 
ple of  Love. 

INSCRIPTION :     (Names  of  participants.)    (On  altar)  amor  vincit 

.  .  .  IN  AFFECTIONATE  REMEMBRANCE  OF  THE  CELEBRATION  OF 
JUNE    XXIII,   MCMV.      AUGUSTA    AND   AUGUSTUS    S  AINT-G  A  U  D  E  N  S . 

In  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Augustus  Saint-Gaudens. 

The  "Masque  of  the  Golden  Bowl"  was  performed  by  the  residents  to  cele- 
brate the  twentieth  anniversary  of  the  year  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Saint-Gaudens  first 
made  Cornish  their  summer  home. 


Ciipyrigh!  iqoS  by  tie  W.  C.  Ward 


1907 

PLASTER   MODELS   FOR  UNITED 
STATES   NEW  COINAGE 

(I) 

Head  of  woman,  in  profile,  wearing  olive  wreath.  Above,  thirteen  scars. 
Diameter  of  plaster  model  li|  in.  Unused  design,  originally  intended  for 
one-cent  piece. 


Copyright  1908  by  de  W.  C.  Ward 


1907 

PLASTER   MODELS   FOR  UNITED 
STATES    NEW    COINAGE  {Continued) 

(2) 

Similar  to  No.  i,  with  Indian  head-dress  substituted  for  oHve-wreath,  and 
with  margin  of  rehef  lowered.    Depth  iif  in. 

Design  for  obverse  of  ten-dollar  gold  piece. 


Copyright  1908  by  de  W.  C.  Ward 


1907 

PLASTER   MODELS   FOR  UNITED 

STATES    NEW    COINAGE  {Continued) 

(3) 

American  eagle,  standing;  arrows  and  olive  branch  in  claws.  In  upper  right 
field,  INSCRIPTION:  E  PLURI  BUS  UNUM.  Legend:  UNITED  STATES 
OF  AMERICA.    Depth  I2j  in. 

Design  intended  for  reverse  of  the  twenty  -  dollar  gold  piece,  but  used 
for  the  ten. 


Copyright  1908  by  de  W.  C.  Ward 


1907 


PLASTER   MODELS   FOR  UNITED 

STATES    NEW    COINAGE  {Continued) 

(4) 

Full-length  figure  of  winged  woman,  standing;  flowing  hair,  Indian  head- 
dress, classic  robe;  torch  in  right  hand,  olive  branch  in  left;  left  foot  raised 
on  a  rock  against  which  is  an  oak  branch.  In  the  lower  left  field  a  small 
sketch  of  the  Capitol  building,  with  rising  sun;  lower  right  field,  mcmvii. 
Border  of  forty-six  stars.    Edge  bevelled.    Depth  12\  in. 

Original  idea  for  obverse  of  twenty-dollar  gold  piece. 


Copyright  1908  by  de  W.  C.  Ward 


1907 


PLASTER   MODELS   FOR  UNITED 

STATES    NEW    COINAGE  {Continued) 

(5) 

Similar  to  No.  4,  but  without  wings  or  head-dress  for  the  figure;  Capitol 
building  enlarged,  rays  of  sun  lengthened  and  extended  across  from  left  to 
right.  Border  of  stars  nearer  centre,  leaving  wider  margin.  Edge,  thirteen 
stars,  with  legend  e  pluribus  unum.    Depth  125  in. 

Design  for  obverse  of  twenty-dollar  gold  piece. 


« 


1907 

PLASTER   MODELS   FOR  UNITED 

STATES    NEW    COINAGE  {Continued) 

(6) 

American  eagle,  flying.    Below,  rising  sun,  with  rays  extendingto  margin. 
LEGEND :     UNITED    states    of    America,   twenty  dollars. 
Depth  13J  in. 

Design  intended  for  one-cent  piece,  but  used  for  twenty-dollar  piece. 

From  plaster  models  in  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Augustus  Saint-Gaudens. 


1907 


WHISTLER  MEMORIAL  AT  UNITED 
STATES   MILITARY  ACADEMY 

WEST     POINT,    N  .     Y  . 

Marble  tablet,  low  relief.  Height  21  ft.  2  in.;  width  3  ft.  Greek  torches  at 
sides,  with  a  small  wreath  above  and  Whistler's  butterfly  device  belovv. 

INSCRIPTION  (rxlract  from  fVhtstlers  "Ten  O'Clrjck"):  TO  JAMES 
MCNEILL  WHISTLER,  M  D  CCC  X  XX  I  V- M  C  M 1 1 1 .  THE  STORY  OF  THE 
BEAUTIFUL  IS  ALREADY  COMPLETE,  HEWN  IN  THE  MARBLES  OF  THE 
PARTHENON  AND  BROIDERED  WITH  THE  BIRDS  UPON  THE  FAN  OF 
HOKUSAI. 


CiipyrinUt  looH  by  ilc  TI'.  C.  Ward 


1907 

STUDY    FOR   THE   HEAD   OF  CHRIST 

Marble  liead,  on  square  block  of  marble.    Total  height  16  in. 
In  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Augustus  Saint-Gaudens. 

This,  and  the  low-relief  plaque  of  his  wife,  were  the  last  jiieccs  of  sculpture 
worked  upon  by  Saint-Gaudens  with  his  own  hands. 


Cipyn'g/il  iDO.S  //V  ilr  U\  C.  W'.in/ 


AUGUSTUS  SAINT-GAUDENS 

From  a  photograph  by  de  W.  C.  Ward 


Copyright  igo8  by  ile  If.  C.  Ward 


GETTY  RESEARCH  INSTITUTE 


3  3125  01451  0875 


